Climate emergency is a health emergency, UK veteran doctor says

Professor Abdul Rashid Gatrad, a renowned British Consultant Paediatrician, has called on the Pakistan government to provide vocational training to the most disadvantaged children, aligning with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. This appeal comes as he emphasizes that the climate emergency is, in fact, a health emergency.

As CEO of Midland International Trust (MIAT), Professor Gatrad has raised over £3 million for various health-related development projects worldwide. Notably, he has established a state-of-the-art cleft hospital in Gujarat, Pakistan, offering free services, including operations, funded primarily by Muslim and Pakistani donors in the West Midlands. This project was showcased in a 15-minute ITV documentary.

Professor Gatrad, a paediatrics and child health expert at three universities – University of Birmingham, Universities of Kentucky, and Wolverhampton – has received numerous honors, including an OBE from the Queen in 2002 for his services to ethnic minority children in the Midlands.

In 2014, he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant to Her Majesty the Queen and made Freeman of the Borough of Walsall for his contributions to reducing newborn baby mortality rates and his role in researching the Hepatitis Vaccine, which was later implemented globally.

Born in India but working in Pakistan, Professor Gatrad met Khwaja Mohammed Aslam, a Pakistani businessman and chairman of Midland International Aid Trust UK (MIAT), in 2003. He was invited to become the CEO in 2005, a role he has held since then.

Since then, the charity has made a huge difference to the lives of hundreds of thousands around the world – particularly children.

At the time MIAT only had £20,000 of working capital and Pakistan was the only country where humanitarian aid was provided.

Since then, Rashid has sacrificed time, effort, energy and money to make MIAT truly global – now in over 20 countries.

Professor Abdul Rashid Gatrad, who started as postman before becoming a doctor in 1971, largely financed through MIAT this- state of the art 3 storey hospital which houses, audiology, speech therapy, dental services 2 wards and 2 operating theatres.

The hospital is supported by 4 doctors running round the clock operations and providing free medical aid to patients of the area, including those who travel from far and wide.

The hospital grounds have playing facilities. Then it was in 2016 when during a visit to Gujarat that he met a female teenage street beggar on crutches.

She had clubbed feet that were bare and bleeding. This led to Professor Rashid Gatrad setting up the clubfoot centre where now hundreds are being treated from birth – avoiding operations when older.

The director of Deafkidz International, Steve Crump visited the centre in 2017 and hailed it as a revolutionary set up for a facility like that in Pakistan. Over subsequent 3 years he helped develop the audiology services. The professor said: “Collaborating with Deafkidz International, we have screened 20,000 children with deafness, in Punjab, Pakistan.

Now 20 million people in the Sindh district have access to this service that I helped set up and facilitated. Improving such disabilities and supporting education, particularly for girls, ensures that children take their rightful place in society and do not beg on the streets with a potential for abuse and trafficking..”

The veteran doctor’s work extends to over 20 countries, including Somalia, Malawi, Gambia, Syria, Bangladesh, Haiti, the Dem Rep of Congo, and Nepal where he provided 1000 huts for families with children, the elderly and the disabled, after the earthquake in 2014.

The doctor explained that through MIAT projects, he has arranged over 5000 cataract operations in Pakistan, Kashmir and Malawi; delivered over 500 cataract operations in Bangladesh; carried out 40 operations in Sierra Leone on teenage girls with vaginal fistulae; delivered food provisions, fresh water and blankets to refugees in Syria, Jordon, Kenya and Lebanon; built a 3Km fresh water pipeline in a village in Somalia; built houses in Malawi in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan after the floods and supported vocational training projects in Sierra Leone, Malawi, Turkey, India, Kashmir and Pakistan.

At 78 he is still full of enthusiasm to make a difference to the lives of the needy, Professor Abdul Rashid Gatrad plans to visit Pakistan again with a hope of meeting government officials to campaign for vocational education for some of the most downtrodden sections of the society.