In April 2020, Arabian Business and Time Out launched The Hero Project, in a bid to raise the profiles of the thousands of individuals and companies in the UAE making huge efforts to overcome the Covid-19 crisis.
The project allows members of the public to nominate any person, company or organisation in the UAE who they believe deserves recognition during the current pandemic.
Dr Humaira Iqbal is one of these nominees.
Friends of Dr. Humaira Iqbal most often use one word to describe her: dedicated. A doctor with nearly 20 years of experience, Dr. Iqbal is currently working in the isolation centre set up at Burjeel Medical City Dubai.
Despite the challenges of being thousands of kilometres away family in Pakistan, Dr. Humaira has shined during the coronavirus pandemic.
“She is a dedicated doctor….she volunteered for training on ventilators used for Covid-19 to effectively contribute to the current situation,” family friend Sidra Iftikhar says. “She lives alone and there is no one to take care of her. She has to travel one hour each way to get to her new place of work and at times has worked on her off days too where there was a staff shortage.”
“She stays in PPE for 12 hours straight while on duty which is a difficult proposition as it can make an individual quite uncomfortable,” she added.
Dr. Humaira’s dedication to her work is all the more impressive when taken in context with her current family situation.
“Her parents are elderly with various underlying health issues and alone in Karachi, as her other siblings are settled outside Pakistan. She is a single parent and has two children studying in Pakistan,” explains Iktikhar.
“She is a single parent and has two children studying in Pakistan. The kids were expected to join her in March during their spring break. However, with increasing concern over the pandemic and her parents self-isolating, she asked them to stay in Pakistan,” she adds. “She does feel isolated on her own but understands its better this way for everyone involved.”
It’s little wonder why Dr. Humaira is one of the UAE’s heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“She doesn’t feel she is doing anything extraordinary. Simply doing her duty as a doctor,” Iftikhar explains. “These frontline doctors are our modern day heroes as they are risking their lives every day while considering it nothing but their duty.”
