dreaded task

One of the task that I try not to have on my desk are bursary cases that comes pouring into our office every day. It is the collection of cancer cases that are being referred to us from the hospitals for financial assistance. Once we receive it from the social welfare department of hospitals, we are going to process it ( getting the recommendations from our panel doctors and approval from the board) and subsequently the hard stricken cancer patients will get the money via bank account two weeks after that.

It's sound an easy job if you just go through it mechanically. but it also opens us to the tragic and sad stories of the people in the cases referred. It was tough to read cases like jobless single mom with four kids and with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma written on her medical report. And even tougher when we came across story of a leukemia boy named Shafiq whose mother was prostitute and his biological father could be one of her 'customers'. (He passed away many years ago)

It is difficult for us not to be so attached to the patients that we help. Sometime we talk for hours over the phone, listening to their sufferings. You just can't help not to say no to them. Eventually they become our friends. And sometimes our office can turn gloomy when we know one of them spread the wings and fly away.

It pains us so much that some of us just don't want to do it anymore.

That is why when I returned to my office last year, I chose not to sit in bursary committee and focused on other tasks. I can't do it anymore, I think.The last time I had a bursary case on my table was in 2001. The case of Che Jam Ahamad, a Big C patient in Kuala Nerang, Kedah who wrote almost illegible letter to us appealing for help. (I still keep the letter). We helped her by providing financial assistance to enable her to go to Penang to get cancer treatment. I visited her for the first time last February 2005. Alhamdulillah she is fine now and still going for check-up at the Mount Miriam Penang without fails.

But, today I am having one on my desk. It was through my friend across the causeway that I got this case. At first when she told me about this very sick single mom with six children, my gut feeling told me that it must be cancer. True enough when her contact who got better picture of the case called me, it is confirmed;Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. I got the patient's number and called her immediately.I am meeting her tomorrow in Shah Alam.

Don't ask me how I get the courage to do it. It is just the things in life that you just do it without anymore deliberation even though the story we will listen to will give a deep pain in our hearts.