List of Top 5 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan

Pakeeza a 14 months old child is suffering from a heart disease which is making her vulnerable from  inside. When she was just three months old the doctors diagnosed her with Right Ventricular outflow tract. She was given medicines for temporary relief but badly needed a surgery for complete recovery. Pakeeza’s parents saw the miserable condition of their daughter, trembling in fever, turning blue in severe chest pain and having breathing problems.

Pakeeza was a lucky child. When her parents were trying to find a way to save her life somebody told them about Transparent Hands, a nonprofit organization that funds surgeries for poor people. Transparent Hands launched a successful fundraising campaign to arrange the money for Pakeeza’s surgery and now her BSD closure and RVOT resection has been scheduled at the Ittefaq Hospital.

NGOs across Pakistan are acting as the catalyst to boost the functionality of the healthcare system by reaching out to patients who are suffering from chronic and life-threatening diseases, providing free medicines and sponsoring surgeries of the poor patients to prevent any premature death.

In spite of all the generous efforts and successful implementations of charitable healthcare projects, many people don’t know about these NGOs or their work. Such ignorance is actually harming the patients who could easily receive help, care and funding for their treatments from these organizations.

NGOs and Medical trusts aim to reach out to more patients so they have taken the initiative to organize medical camps for the poor patients who cannot afford to pay for expensive medical facilities or regular visits of the doctors.

Medical camps are conducted to provide basic medical treatment for everyone. Qualified doctors attend the needs of the patients free of charge. Medical laboratory tests, X-rays, Sonography, free blood pressure and sugar check-up facility etc. are provided to economically challenged people free of cost. Often patients in need of surgical treatment are identified in these camps and are further registered with the NGOs or trusts to sponsor their surgery at reputable hospitals through fundraising.

Medical camps are effective to build a bridge between the organizations and the unprivileged community who benefit largely from the humanitarian and healthcare facilities provided by these generous organizations.

Medical camps are the bridge of hope which helps to introduce the NGOs and their missions to the poor patients. Medical camps are a great way to inform the unprivileged community that they don’t need to die without getting proper treatment anymore and they are not alone.

Even if the poor lack the financial ability to pay for their medical services there are organizations who are tirelessly working to bear the medical expenses on behalf of them and provide them the top-notch medical treatment which is their rights.

List of Top 5 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan

1 – Transparent Hands

2 – Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital

3 – Edhi Foundation

4 – Al-Mustafa Welfare Society

5 – Insaniyat Foundation Pakistan

1- Transparent Hands

Quick and Easy Way to Save Peoples’ Lives

Transparent Hands is in first position in our List of Top 5 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan Transparent Hands funds surgeries of poor patients using a global Crowdfunding platform. The platform provides visibility of poor patients and builds a personal and trusted bond between patients and donors while ensuring complete transparency.

Where Is the Problem?

More than 70 million people in Pakistan are living below the poverty line due to which they are unable to undergo proper health treatment if they experience any disease. Estimated amount of surgery backlog in Pakistan is in millions every year.

• There are not many health insurance plans for underprivileged community. They have to pay out of pocket if they need any medical treatment but due to the limited or no resources, majority is unable to undergo surgical treatment.
• Beyond the cost of the surgical procedure, they might have to pay for pre and post-operative expenses which includes medical tests, medications, hospital stay and other expenses. It is almost impossible for someone who earns less than $2 a day to pay hefty amount for medical relief.
• There is lack of advanced medical facilities and medical professionals due to which lower middle class families are unable to avail treatment facilities.
• There are a limited number of beds in hospitals but the number of patients visiting these hospitals is a lot more.
• Every second patient including a child is put on a long waiting list and during the waiting period, the patient’s health further deteriorates. In most of the cases, patients expire until their turn comes.
• There is no advanced healthcare services in slums due to which majority of people have to rely on quacks in their areas.
• Private hospitals are out of reach for deprived community due to the high costs of consultation fees and surgical procedure.

-> List of Top 3 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan

Our Role

• Committed to Provide Free Surgeries to Those Who Cannot Afford

Transparent Hands is a non-profit organization which is tackling this major healthcare issue of Pakistan with the help of fundraising through its unique Crowdfunding platform. It is registered under Trust Act 1882 as a Trust Organization with a Tax Exemption status under the article 2(36) in Pakistan. Transparent Hands is  registered in USA EIN assigned: 47-3564801 as Transparent Hands Foundation US, Inc. with tax exemption status 501(c)3.

Transparent Hands conducts the surgeries of deserving patients free of cost at private hospitals with the help of donations and charity. Donors from all over the world can use our online Crowdfunding web portal if they wish to donate. They could select any patient, fund the surgery and receive regular feedback and updates until the patient is recovered completely.

Our user friendly online fundraising work as follows:

• Choose the patient whose surgery you want to fund. 
• Choose from a number of payment methods as per your convenience.
• Donate to that particular patient and get tax exemption.
• Get regular updates of that patient until he/she gets fully recovered.

What makes us unique is; our transparency level that means donors will be ensured that each penny they are giving will be spent on the needy patient. We do this by uploading all the hospital bills and other documents of our patient after his/her surgery is successfully conducted. Donor can see that the exact amount hospital has charged against the surgery of that particular patient.

2 – Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital

Mission

Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital is in second position in our List of Top 5 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan. “To act as a model institution to alleviate the suffering of patients with cancer through the application of modern methods of curative and palliative therapy irrespective of their ability to pay, the education of health care professionals and the public and perform research into the causes and treatment of cancer.” Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre.

Donate any amount of your choice or be an official online fundraiser of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre by following these simple guide lines:

Step-1: Sign up

Step-2: Create your fundraising page

Step-3: Donate and pass it on to your friends If we all do a little, we can do a lot!.

Many young innocent lives are being saved at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre. Last year, your Zakat made it possible to treat almost 75% of their patients for free. This year they need 5.5 billion rupees to help those who cannot afford to pay for their own treatment. While the revenue from the Hospital’s diagnostic services has always, and continues to be, utilised for their expansion projects, it is your Zakat that is the hope of life for their poor cancer patients. Donate generously to SKMCH&RC this Ramadan and help us keep this hope alive. Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre

Leadership

Their leadership brings together years of experience and expertise with the mission of fighting cancer and unprecedented commitment to patient care, education, and research.

Clinical Services

Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre offers a complete range of health care services. Find a clinical service below by searching their Departments.

1-  Anaesthesiology

Anesthesia Department at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre provides anesthesia to a wide variety of surgical patients inside the four operating rooms.

Facilities & Services

Anesthesia is also provided in MRI suit, where a state of the art MRI compatible anesthesia machine and monitoring is used for safe conduct of the diagnostic test. Sedation and anesthesia is provided in Endoscopy unit for either Gastro-esophageal or pulmonary interventions. Sedation and anesthesia is also provided for vascular coiling and for neuro-interventional radiology. Other areas for activity are sedation for Radiation simulations in children in the dept. of Radiation Oncology. Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre.

Their practice is as wide based as are the demands for anesthesia requirements in different specialties and varied locations through out the hospital. The dept. is well equipped with the latest tools to safely conduct anesthesia and sedation. Operating rooms are equipped with most modern anesthesia machines with availabity of  invasive monitoring, they are in the process to updating  all the older equipment in the operating rooms and the PACU ( post anesthesia care unit) to  the most modern equipment available.

Wide variety of interventional pain procedures including Radiofrequency Nerve and Joint Ablations as well as permanent neurolysis for cancer pain are routinely performed. Interventional Pain Service with dedicated pain nurse provides a wide variety of solutions to patients in sever pain.

Projects of SKMT

The Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust realises its responsibilities in the fight against cancer and therefore, it has established a number of centres all over Pakistan that help in the awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer in Pakistan. Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre

Hospitals

• Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (Lahore, Pakistan), the first specialised cancer facility in the entire region with all the cancer diagnostic and therapeutic facilities under one roof, inaugurated on December 29, 1994.
• Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (Peshawar, Pakistan), built according to the latest international healthcare standards, inaugurated on December 29, 2015.
• Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (Karachi, Pakistan) Land Awarded, Planning in progress

Outreach Cancer Screening Clinics

• Shaukat Khanum Walk-In Clinic (Karachi, Pakistan) 
• Shaukat Khanum Walk-In Clinic (Peshawar, Pakistan)
• Shaukat Khanum Walk-In Clinic (Lahore, Pakistan)
• Shaukat Khanum Walk-In Clinic (Multan, Pakistan)

Diagnostic Centres

• Shaukat Khanum Diagnostic Centre (Lahore, Pakistan)
• Karachi Diagnostic Centre and Clinic (Karachi, Pakistan)

Their Services

As one of the largest cancer care centres in Pakistan, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre offers a complete range of health care services including clinical, diagnostic, out-patient, and others.

3 – Edhi Foundation

About Edhi Foundation

Edhi Foundation is in third position in our List of Top 5 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan. Edhi Foundation is the single best foundation across Pakistan and one of the best social welfare service providers across the world running on non-commercial, non-political, and non-communal basis, serving round-the-clock without any discrimination of color, class, and creed is enjoying exclusive credentials in the shape of awards and shields conferred upon Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi and Mrs. Bilquis Edhi by governmental and non-governmental organizations on national and international level for rendering their exemplary services to humanity in multidimensional fields. Edhi Foundation – A Non Profit welfare Organization.

The diversified fields in which Abdul Sattar Edhi played his greatest role for; saving the lives of thousands of newborn babies by placing the cradles outside the Edhi centres, fostering the abandoned babies and children, free nurturing disabled and handicapped people, free caring and feeding women and elderly people who were subjected to torture or neglected by their families, free supporting to ailing patients by providing free medication and medicines through his mobile dispensaries, hospitals, and the diabetic centre at Karachi.

In addition to above, he offered his services in many other areas—like providing land, air, and marine ambulance services during accidents to shift patients to hospitals, national and international relief and aid assistance to the affectees of natural debacles, providing relief aid to refugees in various countries, providing emergency services to the sufferers of drought, fire, and flood, saving the lives of drowned people added with recovering dead bodies from the seas and floods, free rehabilitating the drug addicts, free tracing the missing people, free arranging marriages for the helpless girls and boys, providing free food, clothing, and blankets to needy people.

Besides above, he also served the humanity by offering his services by, providing free technical education to needy people to make them self sufficient through the technical knowledge and skills, providing religious education to the children to make them the best human beings, providing consultancy on family planning and maternity services, providing free blood and plasma to the disadvantaged people, providing free shelter, food, and caring to mentally retarded people, caring by giving shelter and food to orphan and helpless children.

Services to humanity rendered by Abdul Sattar Edhi and his spouse Mrs. Bilquis Edhi never end here, he played his role in some more areas—such as; provided free legal aid to bail out or the prisoners from the prisons, financial and medical support to the prisoners, provided crutches and supporters to the handicapped people, and gave exclusive free bathing and shrouding services to unclaimed dead bodies, so on and so forth. All these services are so much outstanding and exceptional that Edhi Foundation’s role can truly be attributed to an unprecedented example of services to the nation and country of Pakistan as well as humanity, across the globe.

Edhi Foundation – A Non Profit welfare Organization

Services

• Ambulance Service
• Hospitals
• Child Adoption Center & Childcare Services
• Edhi Homes & Orphanage Centres
• Educational Service

Ambulance Service

Edhi Land Ambulance Service was initially started by including a second hand Hillman Pickup Truck and that was refurbished into the first ambulance, thereby coining “Poor Patient Ambulance”. Now sixty years after, the Edhi ambulance has reached to the stage of largest fleet of ambulances in the world, thereby providing with a tantalizing number of ambulances—such as 1800 vehicles, all over their country – Pakistan.

Child Adoption Center & Childcare Services

The history of establishing the Edhi child adoption centre and childcare services dates back to 1949. Mrs. Bilquis Edhi is supervising and looking after the caring and feeding of babies and children. For this purpose, exclusive cradles have been placed outside all Edhi Centres, across the country with a view to keep the abandoned and illegitimate babies in these cradles.

Mostly these abandoned newborn babies are provided to the childless couples, who in accordance with their own policies, after ensuring that they are fully deserved and exactly suitable for this noble cause. Bilquis Edhi, after completely going through the background of the couples, and undertaking a rigorous screening process she decides that the couple or the family is precisely suitable for the baby adoption.

On annual basis, Edhi Foundation is giving over 250 babies or children for adoption.  Till to date, over 23,320 babies and children have been provided to the childless couples and families.

4- Al-Mustafa Welfare Society

About

Al-Mustafa Welfare Society is in fourth position in our List of Top 5 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan.  Al-Mustafa Welfare Society is one of the most reputable non-profit welfare organizations in Pakistan working for the social development and providing relief to low income group since 1983. It is run by a team of highly motivated intellectuals and social workers comprising of Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Business Executives and Representatives of various fields of life. Al-Mustafa’s branches are working all over the country from Kashmir to Karachi. They are providing Health, Education, Public Awareness and Emergency Relief Services. Al-Mustafa is serving thousands of poor and needy people on daily basis through its Medical Centers, Clinics, Schools, Mosques, Madarsahs, Orphanage, Vocational Training Centers and Skill Development Centers all over the country.

Apart from Al-Mustafa’s routine services to mankind, Al-Mustafa is always among the main contributors whenever people are in need in case of any disaster like Earthquake 2005, Flood 2010, 2011 and 2012. With the support of their workers, volunteers and donors, Al-Mustafa Trust has always been there to rescue people from disaster, provided them tents, food, crockery, temporary schools, medical camps, medicines and anything else that could be needed. They have also provided shelter homes to the victims of various disasters.

Free Medical Camps

Al-Mustafa Welfare Society regularly organizes Free Medical Camps all over Pakistan in areas where people can’t even afford their routine check-up. Free Medicines are also provided to the patients in Free Medical Camps. There are different types of Free Medical Camps as follows.

General Free Medical Camp

In General Free Medical Camp, General Physician does check-up of patients and they are provided with the prescribed medicines. Some investigations as also done such as sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure and BMI etc.

Emergency Medical Camp

Emergency Medical Camps are organized whenever any disaster occurs anywhere like Earthquake 2005, Flood 2010, 2011 ,2012.

Free Eye Surgeries Camp

In Free Eye Camps, Eye Specialist does check-up of patients and they are provided prescribed medicines. In these camps, many Cataract cases are found and Cataract Surgeries are performed free of cost of all the cases found in the camp.

Free Cleft Lip Palate Camp

In Cleft Lip & Palate Camp, Plastic Surgeons does check-up of the patients who have problem of Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate and their surgeries are performed free of cost.

5- Insaniyat Foundation Pakistan

About

Insaniyat Foundation Pakistan is in fifth position in our List of Top 5 NGOs Organizing Medical Camps in Pakistan.  IFP is a Non-Governmental-Organization established to bring about change in our society.The foundation is aimed to motivate youth, help poor people, provide quality health, Blood Bank, awareness programs & free medical camps.

Vision

A Non-political & Non-profit organization established to bring about change in our society. IFP is on the way forward in achieving the best results during disasters and peace time projects to include Health, Blood Bank, Awareness Programs, Free Medical Camps, Education & Capacity Building – this is the core agenda of Insaniyat Foundation Pakistan – IFP

The idea was conceived in 2014 and the launching ceremony of the foundation took place on 27th November 2015 at Victoria Hospital Bahawalpur, which was attended by almost all the members of organization, media institutes and people from all walks of life.

 Mission

Serve Humanity for Good Cause

To improve the quality of living standard of the deprived, vulnerable and marginalized communities, women & children in particular areas by education, healthcare, environment, gender equality, community physical infrastructure, skill development, capacity building, public health & awareness Seminars on sustainable basis

Objective

• Providing quality Health
• Organizing Free Medical Camps.
• Providing Medicines to needy People.
• Blood Bank Service.
• Free checkup at Affiliated Hospitals.
• To prevent drug addiction in target area
• Free Blood (Different) tests at Camps.
• Taking efforts for development of our Villages and Cities.
• Organizing Medical Seminars for awareness.
• To promote quality education both academic & technical in under privileged communities

Conclusion

Early diagnosis and accurate treatment have a dozen advantages to overall health and longevity of an individual. Early diagnosis can identify potential health issues even before they become complicated. Early detection gives the opportunity to get proper treatment quickly avoiding big threats to the patients’ life.

Medical camps provide free diagnosis and treatments of the poor population who can hardly afford two times meal and lacks the ability to pay for healthcare services. Economical instability compels the poor patients to make adjustments to their health conditions and they generally consider medical expenditures as luxuries.

So these patients avoid going to the hospitals at their early stage and wait till their conditions deteriorate. Such ignorant mentalities of the poor patients make their lives miserable and they often suffer terribly from diseases which could easily be treated and cured at an early stage.

NGOs and medical trusts are organizing free medical camps to provide general health check-up to the poor patients, diagnostic facilities to identify major illnesses and surgical cases which are later referred to collaborating private hospitals for further treatment. The patients’ treatment is then conducted free of cost in reputable hospitals as the NGOs pay the bills for their hospital admissions, medicines, laboratory tests and surgeries.

Every individual who is rich or has a well-paid job can take the initiative to help these people in sickness or sponsor their treatments. We can also donate to the deserving organizations that are outreaching the poor patients and supervising their medical needs. Each donation whether small or big can contribute to saving a life.

Humanity is defeated every time when we let someone die before our eyes when we actually could save them. Let’s become a humanist and maintain the dignity of human life. Let’s become the reason, for which the unprivileged men, women, children and the elderly feel secure, heard, cared for and supported.