White Hands offers help for poor patients

SALALAH, Feb 4 - With zeal to serve the society in its own limited way, a group of young Omanis is reaching out to the people who have health issues but do not have money to bear healthcare expenses. Driven by the idea of extending helping hands to people in need, they are the volunteers of an informal group called White Hands. Most of the active volunteers in the group are young Omanis but not averse to including the expatriates and serving the larger goal of humanity. Initially the idea of contributing to the society in their own noble way came up during one of the informal gatherings of some friends, who decided to “do something”. It actualised during a meeting of 15 like-minded people some weeks later when they decided to “do something which many people were not doing.” “Thus emerged the idea of standing by the people who are not able to bear their medical expenses… Then many names came up for discussion and all of us agreed on ‘White Hands,” said Mohammed al Amri, an active volunteer of the group. The group has just completed one year and has some 18 active members. It is making the best use of social media by creating groups and circulating among them the pious mission of helping people. As of now it has 11 social media groups for men and seven for women. The White Hands exhorts its social media members to contribute and thus participate in the cause of serving the humanity. Besides their own source, the White Hands members get tip off about the right candidates who need medical care through this chain of groups. The group’s working is very transparent, as the existing members contact new people to join the social media group and all the money collected from any source goes directly to the Oman Charitable Organisation (OCO). “Our job is to convince people about the noble job that the White Hands does and deposit the collected fund with the OCO. We also recommend the needy for assistance and the OCO releases the assistance.” The response, according to him, is overwhelming, as more and more people are willing to be part of this noble job. “It is open to all. There is an OCO bank account number in which willing people contribute and assistance is given to the needy people,” he said. Said Mohammed Maroof al Yafai is another active member of the White Hands. His passion to serve the humanity reflects in his statement, “If you want to see the real happiness, visit someone who is suffering health issues, stuck between the uncertainty of life and death, and does not have money to get treatment. A ray of happiness is quite visible when he hears that his treatment cost would be borne by White Hands.” Al Yafai admits that all the time finance is not available to help people. The group has more than 20 patients in the waiting list only for this month. “In that case we prioritise and take up the most serious case. We request the hospital to do the treatment on credit, which we try to pay as early as possible.” The commitment of White Hands members is so high that they do not hesitate to pool money from among the members when some emergency occurs as they are driven by serving the humanity first.