Allama Sayyed Ali Fadlallah patronized the Ramadan iftar held by Bahman University Hospital in honour of the hospital's friends and the supporters of the Joy Fund and the patient assistance fund, at the Imam Al-Khoei Mabarra, in the Mabarra's hall in Doha.
The ceremony began with verses from the Holy Quran, then the screening of a documentary film about the Joy Fund and the assistance it offers to children in need of special care, then a play presented by the students of Al-Mujtaba High School entitled “A Story of Joy”, followed by a speech from the hospital's director general in which he thanked “all those who contribute to and support the hospital and the Joy Fund”.
In closing, Fadlallah thanked “all the donors and friends who contribute to and supply these humanitarian projects, which aim to ease people's pains and suffering and work to fill much of the void left by the state's absence in bearing its responsibilities towards its society and its people”.
He said: “We meet today at this blessed Ramadan iftar, and in the presence of this diversity, to witness some points of light that inspire hope in this wounded homeland amid this pitch darkness surrounding it at every level. Through the joining and cooperation of these efforts we have been able to work to ease our people's pains and to soothe their wounds, and we have worked to raise them up so that they may be able to bear responsibility and carry out their duties.”
He added: “Your attendance and your cooperation make us feel a measure of optimism about a better tomorrow, despite what we suffer and what we witness in this crisis-ridden political reality. We were and remain among the advocates of the just state, the state of the human being and the citizen, in which everyone feels equality and which works to meet its citizens' needs far from their religious, sectarian or denominational affiliations.”
He continued: “We must work to lift the country up again and to confront all this corrupt and decayed reality that brought us to this tragic situation. We set out in this humanitarian work in the service of all the components of this homeland: the doors of these institutions are open to everyone, far from their religious identity and their political affiliation, and our goal is to serve all the needy and the poor wherever they are. We therefore stood and stand against everyone who tries to make humanitarian work sectarian or political or to draw it into their own calculations and personal ends.”
He thanked the doctors for “their efforts, their sacrifices and their offering of martyrs in facing the coronavirus pandemic”, addressing them: “You represent the summit of sacrifice and of preserving people's health and social security. Your emigration from Lebanon is a great loss for this homeland, for the loss of these minds will leave a great void in the health sector in which Lebanon has excelled.”
He added: “We hope that the doctors and those working in this sector will stay and stand firm in this homeland despite all the challenges they face, for this homeland has a right upon them that they stand alongside it and alongside its people amid these circumstances it is living through. Our hope in you is great, that you will be equal to bearing this responsibility.”
In closing, Ali Karim presented a commemorative shield to Sheikh Fouad Khreis as a token of “appreciation and thanks for his
continuous and constant support for the humanitarian and charitable works carried out by Bahman Hospital and the Joy Fund”.
