Ex-Addict Becomes Health-Care Provider in Pakistani Town
June 26, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Todd Shea, an American and a former cocaine addict who runs the lone hospital in Chikar, a mountain town in Pakistan’s Kashmir region, is the subject of a profile in The New York Times.
A 42-year-old Maryland native, Mr. Shea began volunteering in the aftermath of September 11 and went to Pakistan as a rescue worker following the 2005 earthquake that killed 80,000 people. As humanitarian aid ebbed in the months following the disaster, he established the charity hospital, Comprehensive Disaster Relief Services, which serves about 100,000 people a year.
Although Chikar is located only 85 miles from the capital of Islamabad, government health resources are scarce in the region, which faces a huge influx of refugees uprooted by the Pakistani military’s campaign against the Taliban.
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