This Doctor's Decision to Save a Christian Nearly Cost Him His Life
A Pakistani Muslim doctor is on the run after saving the life of a Christian man.
The doctor, who remains anonymous for his own safety, is now seeking refuge in America for simply doing what any other doctor would do.
"I am a Pakistani medical doctor, currently receiving political asylum in the U.S. for the past year and a half," he writes in The Guardian. "I sought refuge here after having to go through much humiliation and outright hatred for trying to practice ethical medicine and for belonging to a religious minority in my own motherland."
The problem is not that he saved a life. He is under a death sentence for saving the wrong life --the life of a Christian man who was dying from kidney failure.
"Life seemed well on track until one night while working an ER shift, when I received a patient needing urgent dialysis," he writes.
The doctor soon noticed that no one approached the man to attend to his emergency. That is when he made a fateful decision that changed the course of his life.
"Fearing he might die, I instinctively grabbed the emergency medicine donated via zakaat, an Islamic system of alms-giving, and performed the life-saving hemodialysis."
The man's life was saved but the doctor was suddenly the target of hatred.
"He survived but I immediately faced the wrath of the nurse," he writes.
"She was mad at me because the patient was a Christian and she said Islamic alms are not meant to be used on non-Muslims. But I did not know the patient's faith, nor did I know that such a law existed."
The doctor tried to fix the situation but the damage had already been done.
"I promptly replaced the medicine, which cost around $20. But it didn't end there. The representative of a conservative Islamic NGO, which was a donor to the clinic, was furious about what I had done. They attributed my lack of knowledge about the alms laws to the fact that I belong to a minority Muslim sect."
Soon, the doctor and his family's lives were threatened.
"I was threatened with death at a medical conference hosted by the chair of the same NGO which had complained about me," he said. "Fearing for our lives, my wife, who is also a doctor, and I made it to the U.S. in 2015."
Today the doctor is living anonymously while studying to get a U.S. medical license. Although he says life in a strange country is difficult, he does not regret saving the Christian man's life.
"Life here as an asylum applicant is hard, as I can't practice medicine...I faced backlash that would change my life forever," he said. "But, in the name of humanity, I deem that it was all worth it."
