HYDERABAD: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, a mosque in Hyderabad has been transformed right into a healthcare facility, providing loose remedy to slum dwellers affected by tropical illnesses.
The 25-bed health facility, arrange inside of Omar-e-Shifa Mosque in Shaheenagar, has been operational for 6 months and has already handled over 900 sufferers, lots of them migrant labourers struggling with sicknesses like typhoid, dengue, and cholera.
The health facility is administered through the Serving to Hand Basis (HHF) in collaboration with AMPI-USA, a gaggle of docs of Indian beginning from Hyderabad. It serves citizens from one of the crucial maximum underserved settlements within the town, together with Shaheenagar, Venkatapuram, Saif Colony, Osmanagar, and Bismillah Colony, all of which fall beneath Jalpally municipality.
Those spaces are recognized for his or her deficient sanitation, with open drains, water stagnation right through monsoons, and insufficient get entry to to wash ingesting water developing splendid stipulations for the unfold of illnesses.
Since its inception, the health facility has recorded a prime selection of circumstances connected to waterborne infections, with just about 29 consistent with cent of sufferers identified with typhoid, 18 consistent with cent affected by gastritis or diarrhoea, and 10 consistent with cent from dengue.
In what’s a regarding indicator of native well being stipulations, greater than 30 circumstances of cholera have additionally been reported — a illness that has been in large part eradicated in maximum portions of India and the advanced international however continues to persist in spaces with infected water assets.
The power purposes as a full-fledged health facility, with the bottom ground working as a number one healthcare centre that sees a mean of 400-500 outpatients on a daily basis. The primary ground properties the inpatient ward, the place important circumstances requiring additional care are admitted. The health facility is staffed with docs and nurses, who’re to be had round the clock. It’s provided with oxygen strengthen, IV fluids, antibiotics, and emergency crash carts to care for acute circumstances.
Mujtaba Hasan Askari of HHF stated that the health facility is not just offering life-saving remedy but additionally lowering the monetary burden on deficient households. “Lots of our sufferers can’t find the money for non-public hospitals. Through providing loose remedy, we’re serving to them save anything else between ₹5,000 and ₹10,000 consistent with admission,” he stated.
Askari identified that well timed remedy has averted a number of circumstances from worsening.
“In slum spaces, other people incessantly lengthen in quest of clinical assist because of prices. Through bringing healthcare to their doorstep, we’re making sure early intervention, which is an important for tropical illnesses,” he added.
Whilst the health facility has been broadly favored for filling a important hole in healthcare get entry to, the location raises higher questions in regards to the state of public well being infrastructure in those settlements. Lots of the illnesses being handled right here stem from preventable reasons, connected to deficient sanitation and loss of potable water.
“It’s unlucky that we’re nonetheless treating cholera circumstances in 2025. It is a illness that are supposed to now not exist in a rustic like India anymore,” he stated.
The truth that a mosque-run health facility has transform a number one supply of clinical handle masses of citizens underscores the pressing want for long-term answers.
Whilst community-driven healthcare tasks like this supply transient reduction, professionals argue {that a} sustainable means — one that incorporates progressed sanitation, protected ingesting water, and higher public well being amenities — is very important to take on routine outbreaks.
