Arab American Heritage month April 2020 profile number 8
The inspiring people on this list are in no particular order.
When a man passes away, his children are orphaned. When Dr. Ali Fadel passed away, an entire community of underprivileged people was orphaned.They called him the father of the poor. He had a charismatic South Lebanese accent intertwined with a sense of humor that made you feel like you were at home, not a medical clinic. Dr. Fadel spoke the language of his patients and made them feel better, psychologically, before physically. Dr Fadel was a man who gave all he had to others. He served underprivileged patients, who did not have health insurance, free of charge, and never turned away anybody who came knocking on his door.The word NO was not in his vocabulary. If you sought his help,you were not going to walk away with empty hands .
Kay, a Dearborn resident ,says she met Dr. Fadel 15 years ago, when she first came to this country. She went to him with a sinus infection, he asked if she had insurance, but she was here on a visitors visa . He prescribed and gave her medication and refused to take any money, that was a small sample of his generosity. Dr. Fadel also attended to an elderly man with fatal medical issues for free when his Medicaid was cut off, he cared for the man as if he was caring for his own father and not a patient. Hundreds of people have testified to being treated in the same way by Dr. Fadel.
What stood out most about Dr. Fadel is that he did not come off as a physician, he had impeccable interpersonal skills and treated people as family, not patients. Aside from helping patients, Dr. Fadel was active in the community organizations, including schools and mosques. He built a mosque in South Lebanon, in the memory of his parents, and revitalized a religious center, in the memory of his mother in law.The late doctor was one of the founders of the Islamic Institute of Knowledge ( IIOK). He served as the chairman of the board of the institute on two separate occasions and was a prominent donor and board member. According to a former chairman, Dr. Fadel was one of four personal guarantors on the loan used to build the religious center.The late Dr. Fadel was one of the pillars of the islamic institute since day one, he donated his money and contributed to building the institute”s school and funeral home. He was generous with his time too. He always made himself available for the institute and the community. He was a doctor, healer and a humanitarian, who will be hard to replace or forget.
Dr. Fadel was born on September 5th, 1953 and passed away on October 4th, 2013 at the age of 60 while attending the memorial service of his sister who had died a week prior to his death. Please meet Dr. Ali Fadel, the father of the poor.
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