Please Pray for real people like Bishnu

Bishnu – Patient Advocate,
Bheri Zonal Hospital
Thanks Richard


Bishnu Batterai was one person I really wanted to meet when I returned to Nepalgunj for a visit, two and a half years after leaving with Lorraine and the children in 2004. Bishnu had worked in our house in Nepalgunj. I had heard that, after a time working in other expatriate households, she had started work at the big government hospital in Nepalgunj, Bheri Zonal Hospital, as Patient Advocate.

When I met Bishnu again in October 2006, in the small room where she lives near the INF office, she explained that she is working for New Zion, her local church. Bheri Zonal Hospital Patient Advocate is their ministry, supported by INF. She then told me about the work.

It is hard for us in the developed world to understand just how difficult it is for people from poor communities when they have to come up to the hospital. For many rural families, simply coming up to the city has meant sacrifices, as they leave their fields and income. Some have used up all their savings before they even get to the hospital. Many do not speak Nepali, or cannot read. Even those who can read Nepali find that much is written in English, or in a strange mix of English words written in Nepali script. The whole world of investigations, x-rays, labs, injections, clip-boards, charts and machines is strange and frightening. Even simple things like meals must be bought in the bazaar and brought in for the patient and family. Family members have to find accommodation for themselves in the big city.

Bishnu helps people to cope with all this. She helps people to find their way around the hospital, she explains to them the things that the doctors say, she finds out which patients are poor enough to need extra financial help. She helps people find accommodation and the best places to get food. Most of all, Bishnu befriends people. She told me about a man who had lost all the fingers on his right hand when he picked up a strange thing he found in his field. He started to take it apart, not knowing it was a bomb left over from the conflict between Maoist guerrillas and the government. This man’s wife had died previously, and he lived with his elderly mother-in-law and his three small children. What will he do when he gets home? Bishnu helped him to find what help was available before he left Nepalgunj to go home.

It is impossible to calculate the good Bishnu does. God alone knows what she has done. But Rosanna Clark, who is a physiotherapist at Bheri Zonal and helped set up Bishnu’s work, says that Bishnu is able to really get along-side people who need help. She does not look down on them, or talk technical at them, she just listens, cares, and understands.

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