Hajjis

Strong Steps to Discard Difficulty of Bangladeshi Hajjis

HajjisMNA Feature Desk: Every year, Bangladeshi Hajjis face a lot of difficulty in performing their religious duties and Strong steps are required to discard difficulty of Bangladeshi Hajjis. While many might argue that taking care of so many people is complicated and arduous task, many of our neighboring countries are broadly displaying their capability of tending to the needs of Hajjis of their nationality.

I was privileged to attend a meeting, an annual Hajj meeting – attended by the Minister of Religious Affairs of Bangladesh and other nations. The main agenda of this meeting is to bring to light, the problems faced by Hajjis every year – and how they can be removed.

Feature By Wali Rahman

Airlines Problems

From the lets go – the trouble begins on our home soil – in the airport. Very frequently, flights would get delayed; and on more than one occasions, flights had been cancelled all together. The delay time, by itself, would be grounds for distress by Hajjis; but the unnoticed cancellations of flights would cause a bigger hassle – waiting in the terminal for the entire day, only to return back to the Hajji Camp.
The problem doesn’t end there – once on board, the flight is unable to cater to the needs of the passengers – some may feel motion sickness, others may feel headaches and so on. The airlines are simply unable to assist our Hajjis in the way that airlines of our neighbors do to theirs. I feel the problems exist due to a lack of communication between the airlines and the Department.

Improper Medical Services for Hajjis

This Hajj, the Bangladesh contingent fielded 294 staff members – and regrettably most of them were green horns – field medicine new comers. They frequently prescribed the wrong medicine, and quite so often diagnosed the patients wrong. The medical administration were not too proper either – the medical outposts were not situated where they were needed most – the Mina and the Arafat Moydan. Now that I look back to the medical administration of our regional neighbors – I realize that they had proper medical facilities installed in proximity of the densest concentration of Hajjis, so that, the weak and old did not have to walk long to get treatment. In my case, I had to walk a very long way to get to the Bangladeshi medical outpost to get treatment for my aged mother.

Lack of Bangladeshi Government Presence

The meeting, that I had attended, mentioned in the introduction, was attended by the ambassadors of all the Muslim nations on Earth – all nations, except Bangladesh, of course. This is because all the attendees were invited via badge – an invitation badge that was unfortunately not received in time by the Bangladeshi ambassador. I do not know what the reason was behind this mishap, but it effectively deprived Bangladesh as a spokesperson in that meeting – which not only means that our efforts of making Hajj easier for Bangladeshis have been curbed, but it also stands in the eyes of other nations as the lack of initiative by Bangladesh.

Few Concluding Words

The solutions to the problems are rather straight forward: increased cooperation between the Hajj Departments and the airlines, proper training for doctors and administrators and planning beforehand.
If there were no communication gaps between the airlines and Hajj department, there would be no misunderstandings. There needs to be real time communication channels between the heads of airlines and Hajji Representatives, so that Hajjis would be warned beforehand of impending flight delays or cancellations – so they could better judge when to leave Hajji Camp.
Instead of taking, absolutely newcomer doctors and nurses, there should be a proper distribution of experienced staff and trainees; these staff members need to be dedicated and industrious, and the trainees need to be interns from proper medical universities who have a motivated mental drive to help people in need.
Finally, the government needs to play an active hand at arranging these and meeting their requirements. They do prepare a plan every year, but these plans are only executed just before the Hajj – so the quality of work is degraded. The government needs to plan ahead, and the preparations need to begin many months in advance, so that all deadlines can be met weeks in advance, and maybe the Bangladeshi ambassador will receive the invitation badge sooner this time.
As a final note, I would like to add that Hajj is sacred practice – and as a Muslim majority country, our country men dream of one day performing their pilgrimage. I was fortunate enough, to visit the home of my prophet this year, but the journey left me exhausted and distressed – I only pray that the future Hajjis can perform their religious duties in peace like it was meant to be.

About the Author:

Wali Rahman is an experienced Marketing and Human Resource Expert, specializing in the Pharmaceutical industry and freelance feature writer. He writes this from his experience as he performed Holy Hajj this year.

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