| |
On a hot and sticky weekend 15 years ago, Arifa Kapadia, MS, division manager of Children’s Hospital Boston’s division of Nephrology, was volunteering at a hospital in Karachi, the city in the south of Pakistan where she grew up. She hadn’t worked in a hospital before, but she admired the mission of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), which offers free medical care to people with kidney disease. Located in the largest city in Pakistan, where many of the 18 million residents are destitute, the hospital’s patients have minimal access to medical care. “I was interested in how they were able to provide this high-quality free care,” Kapadia recalls.
On one sweltering day, Kapadia noticed a man wearily lumbering toward the door. “I said to him, ‘You look so tired, why?’” she says. He answered that it had taken him two hours to get to his appointment, even though he was coming from only a few miles away. Three crowded buses had passed him on the street while he waited. Kapadia wasn’t surprised: In Karachi, buses aren’t exactly dependable. But his situation illuminated a serious predicament for many patients. “Lot of people didn’t have any choice but try to take uncomfortable busses that weren’t reliable,” she says. “I thought, they should at least have a seat.”
Securing patients’ transportation to the hospital became Kapadia’s pet project. She contacted a non-profit that had small minivans and ambulances, and lined up a donor to pay for their use. She collected data about where patients lived, and coordinated their appointments so those in the same neighborhoods could carpool. Thanks to her efforts, patients stopped struggling with the bus system and were driven to their appointments. Her success didn’t go unnoticed. Soon, she was hired as an executive coordinator of SIUT. Five years later, her husband, a doctor, got a job overseas, so they left for a new life in the United States.
When she arrived, Kapadia didn’t go through culture shock. “People are the same everywhere,” she says. But she did encounter many misconceptions about the country of her birth. “People sometimes say to me, ‘You are from Pakistan, there’s always fighting over there. Is your family safe?’ People assume it’s all violence and tension. Sometimes they’re surprised I speak English.”
In 2000, Kapadia joined Children’s as the division manager of Nephrology, where she performs operational management, secures funding, hires administrative personnel and assists William Harmon, MD, chief of Nephrology, with daily tasks. One of her favorite aspects of the job is helping researchers from all over the world get their credentials and acquire work visas so they can work at Children’s. “I’m their first contact and I follow up with them until they are hired,” she says. On her desk are gifts from researchers she’s helped. “I love learning about their countries,” she says. It’s important to Kapadia that they adjust well, and she offers her help with whatever they need to adjust, once they arrive.
Does she miss Pakistan? “Of course,” she says. But she worries about how the country is changing. “Pakistan borders many countries, and all the turmoil within and at the borders has really changed the attitude in the country,” she says. “It’s regressing instead of getting more progressive.” Last year, she brought her 10-year-old daughter on her first visit to Karachi. Her daughter enjoyed the family gatherings, shopping in bazaars, riding a camel on the beach and, on her return, brought all her friends pairs of hand-embroidered slippers. Mostly, Kapadia misses her extended family. But she’s grateful she has something that reminds her of home during her workday at Children’s. “It’s so strange, but the Hunnewell building, with its concrete structure, high ceilings and pillars in the front, reminds me of my grandfather’s old house where I grew up in Karachi,” she says. “It’s a nice reminder.”
|
|
| |
