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A Slotervaart-based hospital offers a medical advice to Muslim diabetics aspiring to fast during Ramadan. (Google) |
AMSTERDAM — A hospital at an immigrant-populated suburb of Amsterdam is offering counseling to its Muslim diabetic patients who want to observe the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
"We have 1,400 patients. Half are immigrants, of which 60 percent are Moroccan and the rest are from Turkey and Surinam," Eelco Meesters, head of the specialist diabetes unit at Slotervaartziekenhuis hospital, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, September 2.
Every year, the hospital, which lies in the Slotervaart suburb of Amsterdam which with a large Muslim population, calls its Muslim patients into the clinic a few days before the start of Ramadan to re-arrange the dosage.
"They come to change their course of medication or to ask for advice," said nurse Fatima Malki.
"We advise them to take light exercise or to have a walk after eating."
Malki, herself of Moroccan origin, said many patients are advised against fasting.
"We have to tell them it's not a good idea. We explain to them that there are verses of the Qur'an which allow very sick people to be excused from fasting."
During Ramadan, adult Muslims, save the sick and those traveling, abstain during daylight hours from food, drink, smoking and sex between dawn and sunset.
Reference
Lamfeidal el-Bouazzati has listened to the medical advise.
"It's been two years since I've been allowed to fast during Ramadan," said the Moroccan woman in her sixties.
"This year, I hope to be able to do the Ramadan like everybody else."
In less than 10 years, the hospital's service has made a name for itself and became a reference.
"At Ramadan, there are not only more patients, but there are also more phone calls from colleagues asking us for advice," said nurse Fatima Malki.
Meesters, the unit's head, has also written "Medical passports", an advisory leaflet for general practitioners in the Netherlands.
The passports, written in both Turkish and Arabic, are aimed at Muslims suffering from diabetes who often go back to their home country for several weeks of the year.
They contain essential medical information as well as a list of specialists they can consult back home.
Dutch Muslims make up one million of the European country's 16 million population.
The sizable minority mostly hails from Turkish and Moroccan origin.
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