Medicine can only go so far

One workshop at a time, Depilex brings survivors into the light

Meet Anisha. A property dispute and another’s jealousy made her a victim when she was doused in kerosene oil and lit ablaze. The girl suffered for five years before someone brought her to the Depilex Foundation.

Noreen is a mother of three. After her bickering, unemployed husband refused to provide for his growing family, her parents (who had so far been the source of financial support for their daughter’s household) gave him an ultimatum. “You can leave her,” they told their son in law, “or you can realise that we’ll provide only for her and her children from now on, but not you.” Her husband divorced her. Three months later, he came back – and doused her with acid. When I met her, half of her beautiful face was gone, as if it had been melted right off.

And finally, there’s Bushra. 20 years ago, she was set on fire. Her loved ones deserted her, leaving the woman destitute. “I was desperate,” she recalled as she addressed the room, “when one day I saw an ad in the newspaper. It was about a woman called Musarrat Misbah who was helping women like me, women who’d been through what I’d had to go through – and she was doing it for free.”

These are only three of the stories I heard in a special workshop arranged by the Depilex Smile Again Foundation on Sunday. One after the other, each of the 10 acid and burn survivors stood in front of cameras to talk about their journey. They’d been burnt, beaten, betrayed and left for dead but thanks to the foundation, they’d found a new family that strove to help them not only recover from their physical scars, but to be rehabilitated and create new lives for themselves. One such step in their rehabilitation was taking responsibility for their health and their wellbeing – and that’s where Dr Hina Javed came in.

Dr Hina is a General Practitioner who worked in the UK before setting up her practice in Pakistan, where she’s been working for 2 years now. Her mission is to aid in the growth of the practice of family medicine – a facility that is severely lacking in Pakistan, the Doctor lamented.

“A GP or a family doctor could look at your family history and tell you, say, if you need to have a mammogram. They can do this because they’re your family doctor, and know your family’s and hence your medical conditions and susceptibilities and thus, treat you better.” Instead, Pakistanis choose healthcare providers on a whim: “baselessly, without any understanding, picking anything – and anyone – at random.”

In her session with the survivors of acid and burn attacks, she strove to reduce the misconceptions that resulted in this lackadaisical approach towards healthcare prevalent among Pakistani women. She talked about dealing with stress, and better, more nutritional meal options, as well as some tougher subjects women hesitate to talk about – even, sometimes, to each other – because they’re taboo. She tackled issues ranging from fertility myths to menopause, the necessity for counselling and how crucial it is to get second opinions before surgical procedures – like hysterectomies. She also answered the survivor’s questions about breast cancer, pointing out how both men and women could be diagnosed with it, and talked them through the process of a mammography.

She got most of the women’s attention with that nugget, and again, when she talked about other practices necessary to build healthier lives. After the workshop, she explained that when it came to rehabilitating these women, medicine could only go so far. “It needs to be balanced with healthy practices too,” she said, encouraging them to talk about their strengths and what made them more mindful, give back and laugh more.

Talking to me about their lives after the workshop had ended and the cameras had been packed away, some women choked up with emotion. They admitted that it felt like people didn’t take them seriously, choosing to turn away – just because their features were too disturbing. “It’s not easy coming here and talking about the tragedy that happened to me,” agreed Bushra who, like Noreen and others, was trained as a beautician by Musarrat Misbah’s foundation after her surgeries. “But I come and I talk. Our families shun us, refusing to associate with us because of how we look – as if we asked to be burned! But God gave me this chance. So I’m here. So, God forbid, if it happens to someone else, she can know this isn’t the end, that there are people here who’ll help if she’ll accept it.”

“You’re a woman,” chimed a young woman from the back who’d been quiet so far, “but that doesn’t mean you’re helpless. It doesn’t mean you’re weak.”