An oncologist in the United States has forgiven $650 000 in patients’ debts. After 30 years of business, Dr Omar Atiq closed down his Arkansas cancer treatment centre last year. He had previously engaged a debt collector company to chase up clients’ outstanding bills.
“Over time I realised that there are people who just are unable to pay,” Dr Atiq said to ABC’s Good Morning America. “So my wife and I, as a family, we thought about it and looked at forgiving all the debt. We saw that we could do it and then just went ahead and did it.”
Dr Atiq is originally from Pakistan, and founded the Arkansas Cancer Clinic in 1991.”We thought there was not a better time to do this than during a pandemic that has decimated homes, people’s lives and businesses and all sorts of stuff,” Dr Atiq said, quoted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
When sending his Christmas greeting card to patients, he wrote, “The Arkansas Cancer Clinic was proud to serve you as a patient. Although various health insurances pay most of the bills for [the] majority of patients, even the deductibles and co-pays can be burdensome. Unfortunately, that is the way our health care system currently works. The clinic has decided to forego all balances owed to the clinic by its patients. Happy Holidays.”
In the view of the president of the debt collection company he engaged, Dr Atiq is “a very caring individual”.
Bea Cheesman, of RMC of America, said, “He’s always been extremely easy to work with as a client. It’s just a wonderful thing that he and his family did in forgiving this debt because the people with oncology bills do have more challenges than the bulk of the population.”Dr Atiq approached the Arkansas Medical Society to ensure there was nothing improper about the move.
Source:BBC News
