Muslim Doctor Denies Elderly Christian Medical Care
10/4/2024 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) — When Yousaf Masih Gill first met with the doctor assigned to care for his gravely ill father at Civil Hospital of Sahiwal in Punjab, Pakistan, he found the physician’s words chilling.
The doctor, a Muslim, expressed regret for having to care for the elderly man.
“If I had known earlier that you are a Christian, I would not have touched your father,” the physician reportedly told Gill on Tuesday.
The statement wasn’t the only thing that concerned Gill and his family. While in the hospital, Gill’s father needed urgent medical attention. He and his family searched for the doctor, eventually finding him in the physician’s room. There, he and other physicians were playing a game. Gill pleaded with his father’s doctor to check on his father.
“We are playing,” the doctor said. “We will check on him later.”
The physician eventually told the family he would not perform the critical surgery the father needed. Gill’s brother, Babu Nadeem, a Catholic catechist, responded by staging a protest outside the hospital with dozens of people.
Nadeem said his father was struggling with immense pain and was near death. The doctors at Civil Hospital only responded with prejudice and disdain, going against their sacred responsibilities as ethical physicians to care for anyone in need.
“We have witnessed very disappointing behavior of our doctors just because we are Christians,” Nadeem said. “This is absolutely not acceptable. I ask all of you to join us and raise your voices against this unsatisfactory behavior of doctors so that they do not dare to treat others as badly as we are doing. My father’s operation is on hold, but we will continue to protest until our voices are heard and we are treated fairly.”
Following the protest, Civil Hospital’s medical officer visited the family and apologized for the treatment they had received. He reportedly told the family the father would have the surgery he needed.
The treatment of Gill and Nadeem’s father is not an anomaly, especially in Punjab. Last month, the European Union’s special envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief visited Pakistan, including a stop in Punjab, to stress the importance of religious tolerance, citing the country’s history of persecution.
Christians in Pakistan are often treated as second-class citizens, forced to work long hours in oppressive jobs that keep them in bondage to their employers. Muslims also often falsely accuse Christians of blasphemy and then weaponize Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws against them. Christians targeted in these attacks have been sentenced to death or killed by an angry mob.
