“We are very happy that our child has been cured. In India, we were given a tremendous reception. It was a great experience. Initially, we had some security concerns in our minds, but the way we were greeted by the general public, our fears allayed in no time,” Mr Nadeem Sajjad, father of the girl, told reporters on the family’s arrival in Lahore by bus.
The girl’s elder brother and sister, other relatives and friends of the family received Noor and her parents when they got off the bus at the PTDC terminal. The girl sat in the lap of her mother as the two other Sajjad children gathered around them.
The mother, Tayyaba Nadeem, said her daughter had received a number of gifts. “We have three suitcases full of gifts as well as sweets and other things. We also made many friends there.”
“We have brought along a box, weighing around 25-30kg, full of mail we got from Indians during our stay. Schoolchildren sent us pictorial cards. Special prayers were held at schools the very day Noor underwent surgery,” Mr Sajjad said.
Noor, the youngest of three siblings, had four abnormalities which included three holes in her heart and a defective valve. She went in for a six-hour-long surgery at Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital near Bangalore. She will remain on medication for another four to six months, according to her father who said she did not need to go back to India for a check-up.
“We’d four options: either take Noor to the US or to Europe or to Singapore or to India,” Mr Sajjad told a questioner. On the advice of his brother, who is also a doctor in the US, they decided to take their daughter to India.
“Though Pakistan has world-class surgeons for cardiac surgery of adults, Indians are way ahead of us as far as heart surgery for children is concerned. They have at least two internationally-known surgeons in this field. They have already treated 60 children from Pakistan. They had several children from Mauritius, Tanzania and Bangladesh when we left Bangalore.”
Mr Sajjad proposed that the government should sponsor at least one doctor and send him abroad to acquire the required expertise and education for cardiac surgery for children.
“It is not an easy thing stay away from home for so many days. It also involves a lot of money,” he said.
Noor’s treatment in India cost her parents some Rs300,000. “It would have been around Rs1.2 million or more had we decided to go to the US. Some people perceive India as an enemy. But let me ask you: Is the US our friend? It has always used us as tissue paper. We (Indian and Pakistan) need to improve our relations,” he replied to questioner.
Mr Sajjad has established a Dosti Trust for the treatment of poor children of Pakistan and India, contributing Rs50,000 for it.
At present, over Rs200,000 have been collected. About 80 per cent of the funds collected by the trust would be used for the treatment of Pakistani children and the remaining for Indian children.
Mr Sajjad said he planned to open a Dosti Fund bank account in Pakistan to help people who wanted to donate for the cause. He said many Indians wanted to share the cost of treatment. “Both the governor and chief minister of Karnataka contributed Rs10,000 for the trust fund.”