DUBAI // A mystery donor has provided Dh400,000 to the family of a four-year-old girl who needed a life-saving, bone-marrow transplant.
In June last year, The National reported that Shaheera Faheem was suffering from the blood disorder thalassaemia major.
She had received a bone-marrow transplant in her home country of Pakistan but the operation failed and her parents, Faheem Sultan and Beenish Hassan, wanted to send her to the Mediterranean Institute of Hematology in Italy for a second transplant.
Mr Sultan, 33, having spent all his savings on the first operation, created a Facebook page to seek financial assistance. Through that he raised about Dh150,000 but did not know where rest of the money would come from.
“We had no answers but Allah knows and arranges everything for everyone,” he said.
Then he received a call from someone asking how much money he had received.
“He asked how much the hospital expenses would be I told him it will be about Dh600,000. He replied ‘just pack up and go. I will pay all the hospital bills’.
“I was not able to talk at that time as it was unbelievable for me. He did not tell me his name and requested not to ask but he told me he is from Pakistan.”
Mr Sultan said he was immensely grateful to the benefactor, as well as to everyone else who had given money.
“I have no words for him and as well as for the other people who contributed and took part in any kind of activity related to fund raising for my daughter’s treatment,” he said.
His daughter, now four-years-old, underwent her operation in Italy at the end of May.
About 75 per cent of the cost of his daughter’s transplant has been paid, with the rest due when she is discharged.
Mr Sultan, who has been on unpaid leave, will soon be resuming his work in Dubai whereas his wife will stay in Italy with his daughter.
To mark Shaheera’s recovery, her parents have decided to rename her Rubab, to signify how the operation has given her a new start,
“A bone-marrow transplant is like a new life, so we decided that it this will be a new beginning for her,” said Mr Sultan.
“That’s why we changed her name.
“Shaheera means famous and Rubab is an indirect Quranic name for girls that means good deeds, blessings and strong bonds.”
arizvi2@thenational.ae