Mr Haq wants more hospitals to donate equipment for Pakistan

Zuffar Haq, 36, from Leicester, was honoured at the Asian Business Award on Tuesday for an aid project that supports desperately poor hospitals in Pakistan.

"I was out in Pakistan a couple of years ago, and bought some medical equipment for the hospitals out there - and I thought there must be a more efficient way of doing this.

"Medical equipment is so expensive out there, so I decided to get donated beds and other essential anaesthetic machinery.

Forty-foot containers

"I was disappointed at the response from local hospitals," he said.

"The hospitals just don't seem to want to help."

Medical aid I would have thought since it is helping somebody that it is better than throwing it in a skip Zuffar Haq

Only six out of 100 hospitals that he approached for help agreed to make donations.

Mr Haq, who runs a business in Derby, says that hospitals are throwing the equipment out on a daily basis.

"I am just putting it to good use.

"I would have thought since it is helping somebody that it is better than throwing it in a skip."

Emergency trolleys

Mr Haq will be leaving again soon to deliver four 40-foot containers of equipment to various government hospitals in Pakistan.

The items, which include old-fashioned emergency trolleys, operation beds and nebulisers, will be handed over to a number of hospitals in the Punjab district.

"The defibrillators we sent over last year have been used regularly and every time they are, they save a life," Mr Haq said.

Hospitals that have donated equipment include Liverpool Women's Hospital, South Staffordshire Health Authority, Birmingham Children's Hospital, the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and two private hospitals.

The £7,000 cost of delivering the goods has been met by the International Hospital Relief Trust, a charity established by Mr Haq.