CSR Sime Darby & Pertiwi Kitchen Soup 21 July 2013

I initially saw the posting in facebook. Izad was looking for docs who can volunteer for his CSR programme. I read through the posting and thought why not. It is something that i would like to do when i have time. Especially it is ramadhan now. I browsed and google to look more info about Pertiwi Kitchen Soup.And it was cool to read through the blogs for the volunteers who participated in the past. I then confirmed with Izad about my intentions and Alhamdulillah he was ever so glad for me to join!
Right after iftar, I was off to KL. I was worried if i am late but the traffic was excellent. It took me less than 20 minutes from BJ to Jalan Sultan Ismail. Amazing isn't it when you realize you are not that far off from KL in distance. It is usually the traffic which slows your travel time.
I was clueless about how it is being done, as they wanted more doctors to be involved in this programme.

 From the SIme Darby building in Jalan Raja Laut, we walked to Tune hotel and beside the main road, we saw the setup. People were already queing as it is a routine thing done during the week. This time around , they saw the whole group clad in green (Sime Darby colour) haha The kitchen Soup van was ready to distribute the food packs prepared earlier.
I was introduced to Dr Muhammad-Kumaran (a South African) with his wife. and they are the main core in organizing the clinics on Sunday night. We were straight away into our duties, a simple day to day clinic running. Of course, we had loads of patients waiting for us. It reminded me the time when i did locum and at the same time, glimpse of P2 HKL. The patients are mostly the typical patients i had with me during those days. I guess when P2 closed, they became homeless and it is around the Kl streets that we see them.

 Next stop was Kota Raya but the amount of patients waiting for a check up is not as much as in Chow Kit. Seeing Kotaraya at 11pm on a Sunday night is different from what i used to see. I've not been to this part of KL >15 years therefore it did bring some nostalgia. People were waiting for food to be served and we had quite a crowd there.

 The last stop was the most interesting stop. As it was under the Jalan Syed Putra bridge. This is the heart of the homeless community. An organized terrace and borders between each member can be seen when one walks along River Klang on the embankment. You might have thought most of them would be the illegal immigrants but by fact, they are all fellow Malaysian citizens. Such poverty and seeing their large simple lifestyle, one wonders how they survive in their day to day running.

One might argue, they become homeless and live in such conditions because they decide to do so.There might be a number of them who are like that, but i am sure there are a big number themselves who are just unfortunate. They just dont have the means. More so the ones with infectious diseases such as HIV and Hep B, the social stigma is still as how the casts are that they just have no where else to go. I guess, i do realize why my former Consultant in medicine emphasized how we should treat all patients the same. Itis just so easy to slip into the judgemental mode and be unfair to them.

 We had an interesting mix. Sazzli, a colleague of mine was one of the doctors invited. We didn;t know both of us participated in this programme and it was fun to see Sazzli shocked seeing me! There was Dr Chen as well, an Aesthetic physician who unfortunately had a bout of asthma attack during the trip. Dr Fairuz, a Public Health trainee was certainly in his elements while doing the check ups. They had to give us the manual BP cuff and i can't remember the last time i used it ( being anaes and techy as well.. hahaha)

 Thank you Izad for the opportunity.Insya Allah, i hope to have the enthusiasm of serving as how the regular doctors who does it week in week out.I do salute the efforts of Auntie Munirah to sacrifice her time and effort for such a noble cause. Insya Allah.