December 16, 2005

The true spirit of giving

A nation’s devastation hits home for local doctor

Dr. Sabir A. Khan journeys to homeland to recover after a major earthquake

By Michelle Hecht
Staff Writer

When Evergreen resident Dr. Sabir A. Khan first heard news of an earthquake striking his homeland of Pakistan on Oct. 8, he didn’t realize its enormity for more than a week.

Young survivors of the Pakistan earthquake delight in the toys Khan distributes along his medical aid journey.

Pakistan authorities weren’t even sure about the extent of the damage, because they couldn’t reach certain mountainous regions and areas with blocked roads.

As Khan watched nonstop satellite news coverage, stories of the devastation began to surface. The destruction from the magnitude 7.6 earthquake, which also shook India and Afghanistan, was immense.

Initially, he felt helpless. But as a senior staff physician at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center’s Division of Nuclear Medicine, he knew he could—and must—help.

“This is the country which actually raised me and trained me. I knew that at this time what they need most is someone who can actually take care of their wounds,” said Khan.

He then received an e-mail through a Kaiser Permanente network of Pakistani-born and trained physicians that offered an opportunity to go help. “That was the moment that I just realized that wow, this is the call from my homeland; I must go now,” he said.

Born and raised in Pakistan, Khan completed his education in medicine at the Sind Medical College, University of Karachi. After initially being trained in general surgery and orthopedics, he came to the United States and started training in general surgery. He then switched to nuclear medicine, in which he has practiced for the past five years. Prior to that, he worked in acute care, urgent care and general surgery settings.

At work as a senior staff physician in Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center’s Division of Nuclear Science, Evergreen Resident Dr. Sabir A. Khan helped survivors of Pakistan’s Oct. 8 earthquake. Photo by Michelle Hecht.

With this valuable expertise backing him, Khan boarded a plane to Pakistan with three other doctors and an emergency medical technician two weeks after the earthquake. His colleagues supported him, but they were still concerned for his safety.

“In the Western society, with the image of Pakistan and especially the area northwest close to Afghanistan, there have been rumors that there are a lot of terrorist organizations and cells,” he said. Since his last visit to that particular area was during a high school trip in the 1970s, he was concerned, too.

“But I made a commitment,” said Khan.

After a 22-hour trip, Relief International, a Los Angeles-based humanitarian organization, met them in Islamabad.
Kaiser Permanente donated $250,000 to Relief International’s Pakistan Earthquake Fund to provide medical care, along with $250,000 each to Doctors Without Borders, American Red Cross International Response Fund and Operation USA South Asia Earthquake Fund.

Focus on demolished cities
Khan and his group then went to Mansehra, where Relief International had set up its headquarters in a rented nine-bedroom home barely spared from the earthquake. From there, his team—the second arriving for Relief International just as the first left—drove three-and-a-half hours to Battagram, one of three totally demolished cities.

“All the local hospitals, governmental offices, churches, mosques—everything was uninhabitable,” said Khan.

Survivors in a makeshift shelter in Malakan, Pakistan. Before the earthquake, people had “running water, electricity, washing machines, refrigerators,” says Dr. Sabir A. Khan. It was “a community like you and me know.”

After a few days of caring for patients in Battagram’s medical facilities housed in tents, Khan’s team realized the city was adequately covered. “Japanese, Scandinavian, European and other clinics were set up there and the local doctors had started to come back,” he said.

In the evenings, the World Health Organization—the specialized health agency for the United Nations—held a coordination meeting in Mansehra with relief workers and local authorities to discuss which areas had not yet been covered and needed the most aid. Here they would plan for the next trip out, which would be Balakot for Khan and his team.

The smell of corpses hit the group hard as they arrived in this second-most devastated city. “It was so terrible. You just don’t know how to react to this. You’re saddened by the smell, by the sight,” said Khan.

The people who survived had been waiting for aid and food to arrive. A well-established city, now no shelters remained as the residents waited in the streets among the rubble. “It’s like (when) you take a bulldozer,” said Khan. “The homes were all trashed.”

Speaking to people and army personnel in Balakot, Khan learned of Surash, a town in even more need of medical attention, especially for female doctors to see the women.

It was getting late as their van struggled to maneuver around the steep turns toward Surash, a town at a 5,000 to 7,000 feet elevation. So Khan’s team decided to turn around.

The next morning, with large duffle bags of medication in hand, they hiked the rough terrain to Surash. On their way up, locals met them and helped carry the bags the rest of the way.

Doing their work on a makeshift table of broken planks, Khan’s team saw many people with infected wounds. Children also came to them with respiratory infections, pneumonia and bronchitis.

Dr. Sabir A. Khan tends to a boy who suffered a fractured elbow during the earthquake in Pakistan.

While Relief International supplied medication donated by UNICEF and other organizations, Khan brought over-the-counter pain medicine from home to treat the common aches and pains afflicting many of the citizens there. He also surprised the children with candy.

More than medicine
Khan’s community members, family and friends donated many of these items, along with cash. One of his colleagues brought toys. “It was the month of Ramadan, it was the month of giving,” Khan said. “People were very much into giving mode.”

During the trip, Khan identified people in most need of financial aid. In traditional Islamic law, Muslims have an obligation to give to charity once a year, which is known as Zakat. Only certain people are eligible to receive this assistance, so one of Khan’s many responsibilities in Pakistan was interviewing people. Khan gave most of the money to widows with no source of continuous income and those with unmarried daughters.

Khan and his group also decided to emphasize hygiene. “Yes, they need shelter, they need food, but at the same time, they need soap to wash their hands,” Khan said.

They created a kit to give each member of a family containing a lice comb, Dettol soap, a hand towel, soap to wash clothes and a water purifying tablet. A reusable cloth bag held the items, since Khan was “saddened to see how their environment was being ruined, because there was so much stuff, litter, which was not biodegradable, just floating around” due to the relief aid coming in packages.

The 1,000 kits were funded by Khan’s group and through on-the-spot calls to people in Pakistan looking for additional money. Funding is still ongoing for these kits the people were “very delighted” to receive.

Khan continued to visit many other towns. In Abbotabad, his group distributed toys and candy in a pediatric ward housed in a tent. Another time, they rode a helicopter to Kwai to assess the residents’ needs.

Dr. Sabir A. Khan and Karachi doctor Rubina Jatoi haul bags of medicine up the rough terrain to Surash, Pakistan.

The need continues
Money and aid are still needed, especially as the harsh winter weather pounds the region. The need will always be shelter for fighting the cold that is coming in, which costs $1,000 per family, said Khan. As donations come in, relief agencies are building these wind- and weather-proof tent homes.

Relief International has also set up a permanent clinic in one of the tent cities. If the organization needs more physicians, Kaiser Permanente will provide them, said Khan.

In his 10-day journey, Khan said he learned that humanitarian aid is very costly because of the expenditures required to bring aid to the people. “If I want to donate a dollar, then I will add 50 cents for the costs. Then I will be sure that a dollar goes to them (the people in need).”

To a nation devastated by a massive earthquake, more than 80,000 deaths and entire cities in ruins, Khan brought the people not just this needed financial aid, but also hope. “The biggest medicine which I gave them was reassurance.”

For more information about Relief International, visit www.ri.org. Kaiser Permanente has contributed millions of dollars and teams of volunteer medical staff to the relief effort of numerous disasters, including the South Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. For more information about Kaiser Permanente, visit www.kaiserpermanente.org.