Elias Corraya felt his right side slowly slide into numbness. Hours later, when he could no longer move his right hand, the short, soft-mannered former bank teller in Silver Spring decided to seek help.
Like many uninsured immigrants, he had few options. He was unemployed, so a hospital visit would be too expensive. Language was another obstacle: He worried that in his halting English, he could not adequately explain his symptoms.
Abdul Karim Chowdhury, 89, and wife Zahida Banoo, 75, who moved to Maryland from Bangladesh, leave the Silver Spring clinic after receiving care.
(Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)
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After being refused treatment by a doctor, he went to the gold-domed Muslim Community Center on New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring, where a clinic run by Muslim physicians delivers health care to the poor with a careful regard for Islamic culture. They spoke Urdu, which he speaks fluently. They treated him with a respect born from ethnic kinship.
And the care was free.
That was how on a recent Sunday afternoon, physician Asif Qadri, a Muslim from Pakistan, helped save Corraya, a Christian from Bangladesh who had suffered a mild stroke.
Legal and cultural barriers, money, misinformation and fear keep many of the estimated 450,000 uninsured immigrants in the Washington area from seeking medical help. A growing number are turning to faith-based and "culturally competent" clinics that provide care to the less fortunate inside and outside their communities. They range from pan-African and pan-Asian facilities in Silver Spring to a Sunday clinic at a Hindu temple in Beltsville.
The Muslim doctors in Silver Spring also have a broader goal: to redraw the image of their faith and community, supplanting round-the-clock images of violence that they believe dominate U.S. perceptions of Islam.
"People say to me: 'We hear that your religion is about war, anger, bloodshed and violence," said Hassan El Amin, a Maryland District Court judge for Prince George's County who recently visited the clinic. "Here, you have Islam in action. You have Muslims prolonging life, helping people with their burdens."
At the Muslim clinic, Corraya sat patiently waiting for Qadri. The patient's speech was slow, and slurred. Now and then, he shivered.
"It would have cost $300 at a hospital," said Corraya, 60, his voice so low it disappeared in the chatter around him. "I couldn't go there."
Nearby, there were men in white skullcaps and women wrapped in black Islamic head scarves. The patients were young and old, poor and middle class, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Senegal and the Gambia. All were uninsured.
Since opening in 2003, the clinic has become for many patients a cultural oasis.
"I've gone to American doctors, and I have had to explain a lot more," said Anita Khan, 21, a Pakistani immigrant who brought an uninsured cousin to the clinic. "It's more comfortable here. They show more interest."
Treated With Dignity
When Abdul Karim Chowdhury, 89, and his wife Zahida Banoo, 75, arrived from Bangladesh more than two years ago, they thought medical care would be easy to find. But, Chowdhury said, "Our perceptions changed."
