Iftikhar Khan

PESHAWAR: Although humanity has won but I fee I have been defeated today. Had I knew about the condition of four-year-old Kainat, I would have saved her life, but now doctors have lost hope about her survival.

This was stated by Islam Badshah from Khyber tribal district, who admitted Kainat in an expensive private hospital in Peshawar few days ago purely on humanitarian grounds. Now he regrets that he could have saved the Afghan girl’s life had he knew about her condition few days ago.

In the end of January, when Kainat was experiencing fits and her condition was extremely precarious, doctors in Jalalabad city of Afghanistan told her family to shift her to Peshawar due to lack of facilities in Jalalabad. Her mother tried to cross the border in Torkham twice, but could not do so due to lack of passport. At the end, Kainat’s mother handed over her to a woman and asked her to hand her over to her relatives in Khyber district and ask them to return her if she recovers and bury her in Pakistan if she died.

The relatives of Kainat in Khyber district were also very poor and they could not afford her treatment while the girl was fainted due to her critical condition. Social Activist Islam Badshah got information about the girl from a polio worker after a week and immediately shifted her to Rehman Medical Institute (RMI) to Peshawar on humanitarian grounds.

On Saturday, the RMI doctors termed the disease of Kainat incurable and handed her to her family. Islam Badsha saw off the little girl with a broken heart and said he remembers his own four-year-old daughter Asma when he sees Kainat. He said his own daughter is suffers from fits and he knows the condition of the family going through this agony.

Islam Badshah bore all expenses of Kainat’s treatment and when he ran out of money, he started a campaign for Kainat’s treatment on social media. Meanwhile, the provincial government also gave travel concession to Kainat’s family and allowed her grandmother to come to Peshawar. The RMI administration also then started free of cost treatment of Kainat and also returned the money already submitted for treatment.

Doctors said Kainat was initially infected by measles and then the virus damaged 95 percent part of her brain and her disease became incurable in any hospital.

Now Kainat will return to Afghanistan with her grandmother within a day or two. She will receive food through a pipe fitted with her nose till she is alive.