Cancer Care Hospital Fundraiser in Sacramento Draws Community Together
By Ras H. Siddiqui
The Sacramento, California region has seen several fundraisers recently for many worthy causes. The fundraiser for Cancer Care Hospital & Research Center ended the recent pre-Ramadan series with a tastefully assembled event held on March 12, 2023, at the White Lotus Banquet Hall in the Citrus Heights.
This one drew locals and people from outside the area including Chico, Live Oak and the San Francisco Bay area who all came to support a great cause. The Cancer Care Hospital & Research Center (CCHRC) project is located Off Rohi Nala Bypass, Ashrafi Town, Lahore on the road to Raiwind. It is already up and running and treating cancer patients but is also undergoing expansion and necessary equipment upgrades.
Whenever we encounter the CCHRC effort here in Northern California, three people always come to mind. Professor Dr Sheharyar, its Founder and Chairperson, Board Member Mrs Ghazala Tariq and our very own Mrs Rabina Khan from Chico without whom this fundraiser would not have been possible. And to add to that list is entrepreneur and CEO of the ChenOne Group of companies, Mian Kashif Ashfaq, who is not only on the CCHRC Advisory Board but has been a major force in it since its inception. With family roots in Toba Tek Singh, Kashif started his philanthropic efforts by providing healthcare to the people there.
The event started off with appetizers and a social hour. Emcees for the evening were Sohail Shahzad and Dr Firdos Sheikh. Qirat was performed by Saeed Khan to start the proceedings. Dr Sheikh said that she was very pleased to see the number of people here which showed how close they felt to the cause, fighting cancer, which can be a very deadly disease, the results of which she has seen close up. She also commended the guests from Cancer Care Hospital who had made a commitment to treat financially and physically struggling cancer patients for free in their facility.
The first speaker Sohail invited to address the gathering was Qumar Ashraf, the current President of the Pakistani Community Members of America, who have been successfully holding and hosting the annual Pakistan Independence Day event in Sacramento for a number of years now. Qumar made a moving appeal to everyone present to open their hearts and donate for the worthy cause and thanked everyone for attending.
And next up community leader Nabeela Khan shared her eyewitness account on visiting the Cancer Care Hospital. She said that she had herself been exposed to the cancer struggles within her family and knows how much it helps to have a friendly and lively environment to make patients as comfortable as possible, something which this hospital facility near Lahore provides. She too thanked everyone for attending and asked them to be generous. And before the first keynote speaker was introduced, Sohail Shahzad thanked the area Sikh community for their continued generosity and friendship, and Dr Firdos recognized some dynamic ladies in our community for their hard work.
The first keynote was delivered by Mian Muhammad Kashif Ashfaq who is not only one of the top businessmen in all of Pakistan but someone with a vision for its future as well. Kashif was recently at the California State Capitol during his Sacramento visit during which he met some top officials to increase business between the now Sister States of California and Punjab. No one can argue that this would immensely benefit Pakistan and that the relationship between Punjabis with the State of California is now over a hundred years old. Even the Kinnow citrus which Pakistanis are so fond and proud of is of California origin.
Mian Kashif gave some details of his first meeting with Dr Shaharyar on Cancer Care Hospital and shared some background of his family and business and political leanings (PTI). With Dr Shaharyar he discussed the local needs of cancer patients and emphasized that Imran Khan’s project, the Shaukat Khanam Hospital, has done splendid work but it just cannot take care of the huge number of cancer patients in Punjab who need treatment, including some whom he knew personally. He added that his meeting with Dr Shaharyar was in the year 2015 and they have been working together since then for the Cancer Care Hospital & Research Center cause. He appealed to everyone present to help this effort to upgrade and expand its equipment (e.g., radiation machines) and to go and see for themselves the valuable work that is being done at CCHRC. He also said that they still get many more patients that they have capacity for and requested the “Friends of California” group to fund at least one radiation machine. Kashif Sahib shared a lot more on Pakistan and asked everyone to be hopeful.
The second keynote speech was given by Professor Dr Shaharyar whose brainchild the Cancer Care Hospital happens to be. During his speech he thanked everyone for being at the event and for their continued support. He said that the Cancer Care Hospital dream has been fulfilled at least partially, thanks to people like Rabina Khan. He added that it has been around seven years since the project started and it has made a lot of progress since then. This writer believes that this is the third visit by the good Doctor to the Sacramento area as he was here in 2017, 2019 and now in 2023 as the COVID-19 pandemic restricted his biannual trek here. He spoke in two segments at this fundraiser with a documentary on the hospital shown between them.
Dr Shaharyar came armed with a great deal of information which would not be possible to duplicate in this one report. He said that around 40 biopsies are conducted every day at the facility now. The radiology department is up and running but needs more equipment and that chemotherapy was started there in 2021, and many surgeries are being conducted. He added that patients from far away regions are coming to the hospital, some with late-stage cancers. The numbers are increasing as the populations increases.
Pakistan had around 390,000 people with a new cancer diagnosis in 2022 out of which around 205,000 were from Punjab alone. He too mentioned that Shaukat Khanam Hospital is doing excellent work, but the need is far greater than its patient treatment capacity. Dr Shaharyar also elaborated on the people-friendly core values of the hospital which are focused on the patient and not on the accounting department since there is no fee charged.
The fundraising was next with Rabina Khan taking the lead and assisted by Sohail Shahzad and Mrs Anila Saleemi whose own paintings (along with one from Mrs Rukhsana Qumar) were also auctioned. Other items auctioned were a jewelry set and an autographed cricket bat and ball. Dinner was served soon after. At the end of the event over $130,000 in donations were reported to have been collected.
Entertainment for the event was late but a special treat because some members of the old Legend band (Noor Lodhi and Asim Wali) along with Maneshwar Judge played live music with the super talented Zoe Viccaji on vocals. Zoe sang both Pakistani and Bollywood songs extremely well. Her duplication of the late Nazia Hassan’s numbers was a real trip down memory lane. It was a Sunday night, but a few diehards stayed for the closing act which was Belaal Patel.
