Recently, I had the chance to join a programme at a leading tertiary care hospital in Karachi — Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) — as a junior volunteer. My initial interest had been to get some community service hours. However, the experience was to give me a completely different perspective towards humanity, our society and the environment.

The involvement exposed me to departments within the hospital. In addition, it also gave me the opportunity to learn medical skills and interact with different patients. Senior volunteers were an integral part of the programme, most of them being either college or university students, and having served earlier with various projects at the institution. They also acted as guides to the junior volunteers.

We started with immediate contact with some hands-on medical matters. Checking blood pressure using cuff and pump along with applying the stethoscope were some basic touch points. Obtaining a patient’s consent for simple procedures, along with the skill of taking in their comfort were important lessons in the sessions. We practised our new skills with other volunteers at the programme.

Robotic surgery was an eye opener for everyone at the session. We had to put on scrubs before entering the operation theatre, and were witness to live operative procedure of gallbladder removal being performed on a patient. The robots were being controlled by a surgeon on a special computer. It blew my mind seeing this in action, as my perception had been that this technology and facility would have taken several years to come to our country. Post operation, we had the chance to test robot simulation as an experiment.

Medical social officers arranged a meet and greet session of the volunteers with patients from the paediatric ward, primarily with chronic kidney disease. During one of the sessions, I came across a young female patient named Aneela, who had been coming for dialysis to the hospital for the past couple of years. She had to go through painful sessions lasting for up to four hours, at least two to three days per week. It was obviously difficult for her to attend school regularly. Despite this, the girl was very brave and confident. She explained that she could not get a kidney transplant because her parents’ kidneys were a non-compatible match and her other siblings were underage. Aneela remains hopeful though that one day she will get a healthy kidney.

Dialysis sufferers would not have to go through intense sessions if there were just more deceased organ donors in the country. Unfortunately, there have only been few deceased organ donors in the entire history of our local setup. It can be extremely upsetting seeing a child lose precious years of their life due to such circumstances.

Organ transplantation is an often misunderstood notion. After hearing stories from patients in wards and individually, the realisation gathered was that those who had received kidney transplant were surviving better lives than persons on dialysis. These people were actually living normal lives and many did not have any complications. One shopkeeper who was introduced to us, was quite hale and hearty, and had undergone kidney transplant over 25 years ago.

Specialists were present to impart invaluable first aid training to the junior volunteers. We assessed different emergency situations and decided what to do in each of them. These various emergency circumstances included people who were choking and those who had burns or fractures. I also took part in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on a dummy.

In this training session, the importance of consent and respect to the casualty was reinforced as well. We also debated about what doctors should do when faced with certain moral and ethical dilemmas.

We were also honoured to have the presence of Dr Adibul Hasan Rizvi, the founder of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) and one of the pioneers of providing quality and affordable healthcare in the country, amongst the volunteer troupe. He shared his wisdom and emphasised serving humanity along with making a difference to the lives of others. His presence was a great source of inspiration to our group as he encouraged us with our work and to take up leadership roles in coming years and play our role as the youth of the nation.

My perspective towards humanity and our immediate environment has changed drastically after this experience. The certificate collection was a formality, and in actuality, I have decided to serve as a senior volunteer during the coming seasons. My motivation this time will be on aiding others, and not on completing the service hours.

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 22th, 2023