Beyond the illness
Dr Lalarukh Maqbool
Sometimes while sitting in OPD, a patient comes with complaints, symptoms, pain, and worries. We take history, examine, prescribe medicines, and advise sincerely. Yet sometimes, one simple sentence touches the heart more deeply than the illness itself. “Ghareebi hai,” when a patient says, it breaks the heart. This single sentence often carries generations of struggle within it.
Poverty is not merely the absence of money. It is frequently the absence of education, opportunity, nutrition, support, confidence, and hope. It is seeing medical treatment as a burden, delaying healthcare, because medicines are expensive, and silently accepting suffering as a normal part of life.
As physicians, we do not only encounter disease, we witness helplessness. We see exhausted mothers, worried fathers, and families fighting battles far greater than illness alone. At times, after such encounters, the heart becomes heavy and questions begin to arise: Why are our people suffering so much? Why does poverty continue generation after generation? Why does the poor remain poor?
Part of the answer lies in circumstances. Many poor individuals fight several hardships simultaneously – illness, weak education, unemployment, debt, inflation, social pressure, and lack of opportunity. A financially stable person may face one obstacle, while a poor person may face many at the same time, but there is another painful reality: psychological helplessness.
After repeated disappointments, closed doors, and lifelong struggle, some people gradually begin to accept internally: “I am poor, and I will remain poor.”
This acceptance creates a state of bebasi – a silent surrender of hope. Once a person stops believing change is possible, even small opportunities begin to appear unreachable. Yet this is not the complete story.
Poverty is not proof that a person is weak, lazy, or less worthy. Many poor people carry extraordinary patience, dignity, sacrifice, and endurance. Some continue struggling despite immense hardship around them. History is filled with people who slowly transformed their lives through education, discipline, persistence, and one meaningful opportunity.
Mindset matters, but support and opportunity matter as well. As doctors and educated individuals, we may not be able to eliminate poverty from society, but we can reduce suffering around us. Respectful behavior, honest advice, kind words, and sincere treatment can restore dignity to someone who feels invisible. Sometimes hope itself becomes a form of treatment.
The sadness we feel after meeting such patients is painful, but it is also proof that the heart is still alive. The real challenge is to preserve empathy without becoming hopeless. Because even in hardship, human beings still carry the ability to rise, heal, and change.
The writer is a consultant gynecologist, based in Peshawar.
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