On 23 March 2018, the President of Pakistan conferred the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz (medal of distinction) on Dr Nuzhat Faruqui in recognition of her long track record of public service.
The award acknowledges the efforts of Dr Nuzhat, an assistant professor in urology at AKU, to provide access to vital healthcare and relief services during natural disasters, as well as her efforts to arrange free-of-cost surgeries for children suffering from complex birth defects through her not-for-profit, ULPHAT Welfare Organization.
Whenever natural disaster has struck, Dr Nuzhat and her team have rushed to the worst-hit areas. They have been at the forefront of relief efforts during the floods in 2010 and 2011 which affected large parts of the country, the Abbas Town bomb blast in Karachi in 2013, the drought in Tharparkar in 2014, the earthquake in Chitral in 2015 and the deadly heatwave in Karachi in 2015.
During the 2010 floods, Dr Nuzhat’s team spent five months in temporary camps aiding those displaced by the natural disaster. Besides arranging essential relief supplies for the affected, Dr Nuzhat also organised a series of medical camps to provide services to prevent the onset of disease, and to identify those who needed complex surgeries.
Dr Nuzhat recalls meeting a 12-year-old girl, Amarwanti, during one such medical camp in Sujawal, interior Sindh, in 2010 who needed heart surgery to correct a life-threatening hole in her heart. Her charity promptly mobilised donors to cover the entire cost of the procedure at the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi. Ten years on, Amarwanti, now taller than Dr Nuzhat, is one of seven children in her area who have benefited from ULPHAT’s free-of-cost surgeries.
To date, ULPHAT has covered the costs of over 450 people needing cardiac, gastrointestinal and cleft palate surgeries through arrangements with private hospitals in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore.
“The children supported by ULPHAT have one thing in common. They are all born with birth defects, which are often complex, but can be completely treated through surgery,” said Dr Nuzhat. “I’ve seen how these surgeries have a life-changing effect on these children as they enable them to smile, to play, and to know a life free of pain. When they grow up these children will be able to give back to society and that’s something our team is really proud of.”
The poverty Dr Nuzhat witnessed while working in earthquake-hit areas in 2005 and during the floods of 2010 also led to her decision to bring healthcare services to similarly under-served areas around her hometown of Karachi.
Since 2012, Dr Nuzhat and her team have collaborated with the coastal command of the Pakistan Navy to hold health camps in islands and remote areas off the coast of Sindh and Balochistan. Over the last six years, she and her team have organised regular monthly medical camps where they serve up to 2,000 people a day. The camps offer a range of services with the team consisting of doctors specialising in paediatrics, gynaecology, surgery, medicine, dermatology and ophthalmology who provide essential health awareness and preventive services in areas without formal healthcare facilities.
During one such camp in Mubarak village, doctors noticed that 70 per cent of children suffered from night blindness, a condition caused by vitamin A deficiency. This prompted Dr Nuzhat to adopt a different approach to tackle the widespread problem. By collaborating with colleagues in the department of paediatrics, genetics and ophthalmology at AKU, she is working to launch a research study to identify the causes of the disease to protect the next generation of children in the area.
“Quality healthcare needs to be accessible everywhere, not just in big cities,” says Dr Nuzhat. “This award will drive me to continue to serve my fellow citizens and to fulfil my dream of establishing a mobile clinic so that we can quickly arrange access to medical facilities in areas facing the gravest healthcare shortages.”
