How the UK's most respected Asian doctor turned his attention to Pakistan

LONDON: One of Britain's most respected consultant paediatricians, Professor Abdul Rashid Gatrad OBE, has called on the Government of Pakistan to empower the most disadvantaged children with vocational training, aligning this with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. United.

As CEO of a charity working in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, Professor Gatrad has raised over £3 million for various health-related development projects around the world. He has built, with his colleagues, a modern cleft hospital in Pakistan, Gujarat.

The project was completed so professionally and had such an impact that ITV presented a 15-minute documentary about it. All services, including operations, are provided free of charge and are funded primarily by Muslim and Pakistani donors in the West Midlands.

Gatrad, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at three universities (University of Birmingham, Universities of Kentucky and Wolverhampton), was awarded the Queen's OBE in 2002 for his services to ethnic minority children in the Midlands and in 2014 was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Her Majesty the Queen for her services.

That same year, he was appointed Freeman of Walsall Borough Council for halving the newborn mortality rate and for his involvement in hepatitis vaccine research which was subsequently rolled out globally.

Originally born in Malawi, Africa, Dr. Rashid Gatrad worked as a postman in the United Kingdom to cover his medical college expenses before starting out as a doctor in 1971.

In 2003, Professor Gatrad met Khawaja Mohammed Aslam, a Pakistani bus driver and businessman, who was president of the charity.

He invited him in 2005 to be executive director. Since then, the charity has made a huge difference to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, especially children.

At the time, the charity only had £20,000 of working capital and Pakistan was the only country where humanitarian aid was provided. Since then, Rashid has sacrificed time, effort, energy and money to make MIAT truly global, now in more than 20 countries.

Professor Gatrad largely funded a 3-storey state-of-the-art hospital, housing audiology, speech therapy, dental services, 2 wards and 2 operating theatres, through this charity.

The hospital is supported by four doctors who perform operations 24 hours a day and provide free medical assistance to patients in the area, including those who travel from far away.

The hospital grounds have play facilities. Then it was in 2016, when during a visit to Gujarat he met a teenage street beggar on crutches. Her feet were clubbed, bare, and bleeding.

This led Professor Rashid Gatrad to create the clubfoot centre, where hundreds of people are now treated from birth, avoiding operations when they are older.

“I request the Government of Pakistan to pay attention to vocational training of children and youth to empower them, especially girls. This will be good for the long-term development of Pakistan.

Currently, there is no focus in this area. We are willing to work with Pakistan to support the effort. We have completed a huge maternity and children's hospital named after my mother Jubaida in Gujarat, Pakistan, which is now dedicated to cleft operations. This hospital is a demonstration of what can be achieved,” she stated.

Professor Gatrad further stated that his charitable objective was to reduce poverty and improve health outcomes through sustainable projects for thousands of the most disadvantaged populations in more than 20 countries in Africa and Asia.

“Jubaida Gatrad Hospital was completed in 2015 and now provides employment to many people. Our charity provided medical equipment and the hospital is attracting more and more people to the city of Gujarat,” he added.

The professor told this correspondent that after establishing the clubfoot center at this hospital in 2016, Ruth Lawson of the British High Commission attended its inaugural opening to witness the highly trained international surgical team from the UK that Gatrad had assembled. .

The 20-member Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal (OPSA) team travels to Pakistan twice a year, he said.

“Everyone dedicates their free time to projects in which I have led the development of a very clear and specific model of interventions, that is, an integrated and multisectoral path of care for children that equips local health care capacities to evaluate them, and in the This process provides children with access to education through, for example, help with hearing and speech therapies. An intensive care center financed by us is now being built.”

Deafkidz International Director Steve Crump visited the center in 2017 and hailed it as a revolutionary facility for such a facility in Pakistan. Over the next 3 years he helped develop audiology services.

The professor said: “In collaboration with Deafkidz International, we have screened 20,000 deaf children in Punjab, Pakistan. Now 20 million people in Sindh district have access to this service that I helped create and facilitate. Improving these disabilities and supporting education, particularly for girls, ensures that children take their rightful place in society and are not begging on the streets, with the potential for abuse and trafficking.”

He said: “Over the last 15 years, in addition to the cleft foot and clubfoot centers we have set up in Pakistan, we have set up a breast care service for women and a prosthesis fitting centre, which houses the clubfoot center which It is named after my father Mahomed. Gatrad, cataract camps, hearing services for newborns, dental services and a care clinic for elderly and pregnant women in Sooklan Gujarat.”

The veteran doctor's work extends to more than 20 countries, including Somalia, Malawi, Gambia, Syria, Bangladesh, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nepal, where he provided 1,000 cabins for families with children, the elderly and the disabled, after the earthquake. in 2014.

“Much of my international work is funded by my NHS salary donated through the GAYE program over the last 15 years. In addition, I receive strong financial support from connections with entrepreneurs around the world in countries such as Dubai, the United Kingdom and South Africa . etc.”

The doctor explained that he has organized more than 5,000 cataract operations in Pakistan, Kashmir and Malawi; he performed more than 500 cataract operations in Bangladesh; performed 40 operations in Sierra Leone on adolescents with vaginal fistulas; delivered food supplies, fresh water and blankets to refugees in Syria, Jordan, Kenya and Lebanon.

Additionally, it built a 3-kilometer freshwater pipeline in a village in Somalia; He built houses in Malawi, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan after the floods and supported vocational training projects in Sierra Leone, Malawi, Turkey, India, Kashmir and Pakistan.

“For the last 10 years I have been providing two 'Gatrad Scholarships' per year to doctors and nurses who travel abroad to train and teach,” he adds.

Professor Gatrad regularly travels to Gujarat to train and teach nurses in the care of newborns. He has trained over 1,200 nurses in the last 15 years and some of the nurses he trained now work in England and Europe in the medical profession.

More than 6 years ago he created WASUP (The world against single-use plastic), which incorporates the impacts of climate change. He has fought tooth and nail to reduce plastic pollution through the principles of Refuse, Reduce Reuse and Recycle. He has given talks to many major organizations, including UNESCO, on these topics.

Even at the age of 78, he is still full of enthusiasm for making a difference in the lives of those in need. Professor Gatrad plans to visit Pakistan again in the hope of meeting government officials to raise the profile of his charity's campaign for vocational education for some of the most downtrodden sections of society.

The renowned doctor remains determined to continue as a charity worker until his last breath.

“From a very young age I have considered the struggle of the thousands of disadvantaged people around the world as my own. “I have the courage and conviction not to succumb to despair and defeat, but to face challenges with ever greater resolve,” he stated.

The professor believes that he has improved lives and brought joy to thousands of people in practical, life-saving and enhancing ways.

“I have done nothing to aggrandize myself. This is for humanity and to leave a legacy of bringing hope and serving humanity,” he concluded.