A doctor for all

Dr Shalimar has provided medical relief services locally and internationally. - Mercy Malaysia

MEDICAL Relief Society (Mercy) Malaysia’s Vice-President III Associate Professor Dr Shalimar Abdullah is a doctor with a passion for the people.

Apart from her day job teaching and working as a hand surgeon in Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s orthopaedics department, Dr Shalimar is also team lead for Mercy Malaysia’s Emergency Medical Team.

Her urge to help people, driven by her family’s support, keeps her pushing forward, she shares at a recent interview.

“I’ve always enjoyed helping people, and I think it started when I was a Girl Guide. That also gave me a sense of adventure, ” says Dr Shalimar, who recalls camping trips and sleeping out in tents when she was still in school.

Not content with just feeling sympathy for others, Dr Shalimar decided that she should go out and actively do whatever she could to help – and as a doctor, the answer was clear. Her volunteering with Mercy Malaysia goes back to 1998 when, as a house officer, Dr Shalimar’s head of department asked if she would like to join a mission to Sabah to set up a mobile clinic.

It ended up becoming the first of many humanitarian missions in Dr Shalimar’s career that has seen her travelling across the country and to various parts of the world to provide aid.

“I feel that we are very lucky to have everything that we have here. I know everyone likes to complain about Malaysia, but when you go to other places then you realise how blessed we are, ” she says.

“When people talk about Mercy Malaysia, they always think it’s an international mission. That is a misconception, ” she clarifies.

Dr Shalimar explains that Mercy Malaysia conducts a lot of medical relief work right here in Malaysia.

Among the many projects carried out are the Hardcore Poor Housing Programme mobile clinics in the Klang Valley, which has been going on for three years. Addition-ally, Mercy Malaysia runs a clinic and vaccination programme for refugees in Malaysia that is supported by the Qatar Foundation.

Although Mercy Malaysia primarily functions as a medical relief NGO, it also conducts disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation projects such as school and hospital preparedness programmes in flood-prone areas across the country.

In her time with Mercy Malaysia, Dr Shalimar has been on aid and relief missions both across the country and internationally to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cam-bodia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and the Philippines.

However, she explains that Mercy Malaysia does not go into active conflict zones. Instead, the NGO works in post-conflict and post-disaster areas.

It also provides help to communities that require medical aid even if they have not experienced either conflict or disasters.

“Initially when we were going to Afghanistan for a mission, we were worried due to the political strife and the fact that it was a former war zone.

“But when we arrived, it was actually quite stable. There were people carrying around AK47s but I thought they were quite nice people, ” she says with a little chuckle.

Throughout her time as a volunteer, Dr Shalimar was taken by how welcoming people were of the relief team.

“In Pakistan for example, we did not have enough infrastructure. We could not do big surgeries and did not have general anaesthesia and things like that.

“I told a patient that I was sorry we could not help much but she replied to me: ‘It is OK, it is good enough that you came and saw us because now at least the world knows that we exist’, ” she recalls.

The most unnerving experience for Dr Shalimar was during a mission after the 2018 earthquake in Palu, Indonesia.

“At the time, there were very bad aftershocks which would last up to three minutes.

“When it happened we all would run out of the places we were staying in. After a big aftershock on the third night, I started going to bed completely dressed and leaving the door unlocked... just in case, ” she says.

Despite experiences like that, Dr Shalimar is still determined to continue with her volunteering. Sharing advice with other medical practitioners who may want to venture into humanitarian relief, Dr Shalimar says that volunteers need to adapt well to changing situations.

“You have to be flexible, understand the culture and the people. If you volunteer for mobile clinics, for example, just remember that it is the human touch that is more beneficial than anything else, ” she explains.

“It is listening to someone, talking to them and giving them hope.”

Dr Shalimar has provided medical relief services locally and internationally. — Mercy Malaysia