PESHAWAR – Pakistan will provide free treatment to an Afghan woman suffering from cancer on humanitarian grounds.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Kabul Zahid Nasrullah Khan had filed a request for special assistance to an Afghan woman named Noorziya who had earlier been diagnosed with cancer.
Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa agreed to Ambassador’s request and extended free medical treatment to Afghan female patient who will be traveling to Pakistan tomorrow (Monday).
“Noorziya along with her three attendants (Bibi Rahat, Qudratullah Afghan and Abdul Salam Rasooli) will cross the Torkham border crossing point on Monday,” an official document sent from the Foreign Office in Islamabad to its Peshawar office stated.
Officials of the Afghan consulate in the provincial capital said Noorziya will be treated for cancer at the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital and Research Centre free of cost.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has already commended Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital’s charitable work and provided high-tech machines worth $6.2 million for its Peshawar unit to support free-of-cost treatment to cancer patients, including Afghan refugees.
Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital has been offering free of cost services to more than 75 percent of its patients.
In 2017, however, the facility offered free services to more than 90 percent of patients, including Afghan nationals, most of them living as refugees in Pakistan.
According to the hospital’s CEO Dr Faisal Sultan, the facility offered services to 3,400 Afghan refugees over the past 10 years and 680 were treated in 2017 alone, adding that nearly 1,500 patients per year were likely to benefit from the machinery donated by UNHCR.
