I developed what I like to call “triple” bronchitis. This was in late May. I was rushed to two hospitals: Alka in Jawlakhel, and later, to Norvic at Thapathali.
While six nurses and four doctors took care of me at Alka in my two days/nights’ stay there, some fifteen nurses and five doctors and specialists looked after me at Norvic. It was especially the nurses’ vigil at Norvic that allowed me to enter the brave new world of Nepali nursing obtaining today. [break]
The experience of being medically processed happened as I was wheeled from Norvic’s emergency check-in station to my cabin. Two nurses helped me to the bed. One hooked me to a tube connected to the oxygen supply overhead. ‘Doctor’s instructions, Buwa!’ she said. I looked like a Martian with a pipe with two joint nozzles shoved into my nostrils – a new experience in being hospitalized. The second nurse engineered what is called a cannula on my right hand, a new contraption that befuddled me even in my acute phlegmatic and cough-ridden confusion.
Thus began my treatment at Norvic: Nebulizer every two hours, cough elixirs to gulp and caplets, tablets and capsules to swallow; Rotohaler, Tiova and Asthalin granules to inhale – some fourteen types of drugs and medicines altogether. Checking my temperature and blood pressure, regulating my oxygen intake, asking after my bowel movement were some other recurrent routines during the nurses’ vigil. Injecting antibiotics through the cannula was the other regularity. Doctors made their visits in the morning, afternoon and evening, and a resident doctor was posted at the nurses’ station.
Proper sleep, however, was impossible most nights. Official bedtime was declared between 10 PM and 6 AM, but peace and quiet were often broken with nurses scurrying past the corridors, doors opened and shut, stretchers being wheeled in and out, screaming nebulizers being administered to myself and other patients in other cabins, lab assistants appearing at 5 AM for blood samples, early-morning, on-fast visits to be made to the labs and x-ray theaters and ultrasound chambers.
•••
Three eight-hour-rounds of duty nurses on one 24-hour-workday pattern gradually emerged and I learnt to recognize their faces and names.
Nurse Karki is from Damak, with seven years of working experience. She learns I’m from Republica. ‘I’m interested in journalism, Buwa!’ ‘But you’re a qualified and veteran nurse,’ I say. ‘Still….,’ she trails off. We discuss various types of journalism. We end the session with my suggestion of FM radio journalism in Damak. ‘It sounds interesting,’ she says.
Nurse Subedi is from Kawasoti. Staff Nurse Bhandari is from Dang. Floor-in-charge Pokhrel is from Naya Baneshwor in Kathmandu, Senior Nurse Shakya is from Mangal Bazaar in Patan. We discuss their work and life. Amicability thus develops among us. Their dispassionate professionalism is imbued with personal regards and feelings for me. I feel comfortable with these souls who daily treat ill and sick people, some they see wasting and finally dying, many convalesce and leave while simultaneous serious cases are brought in; friendlier patients say fond farewells upon their discharge, those of feudal outlook don’t care. Life goes on, deaths occur, and the nurses carry on. But as long as I’m a patient here, I’m never far away from them. Am I the luckier one? Do they treat other patients as they do me? I have no answers in my prostrate state, nor do I have the idea to ask them.
The morning visit is on. Nurse Palungwa from Panchthar yawns on my face. ‘You’re sleepy,’ I laugh. Another yawn: ‘Ahhhh, haiii!’ Her breath is fresh and fragrant, and I try to identify her toothpaste brand.
•••
On the fourth day, I’m relocated to the fourth floor because there are renovation works going on along our corridors. The nurses decide that the chemical sprays, for one thing, are bad for my chest infection. Finally, the entire wing itself is closed.
In my new venue, I meet other nurses. Two of them stand out in my fond memories for their personal touches.
Day Nurse Bhari’s native place is Tansen in Palpa. But she has largely been out of Nepal: First, she spent her childhood years in Denver, Colorado, where her father was a department store operator. Then she went to Bangalore for her Bachelor’s in Nursing. She intends to go for her Master’s, preferably in the US. A beautiful, slender, tall and inquisitive young woman, Bhari tries to decipher my names. I tell her about my indigenous ethnic roots and Christian faith. ‘What is Adibasi Janajati, Sir?’ I explain what I can. I also touch upon the Bharis – along with Ligals, Sainjus, Palikhes – all possibly originally from Bhaktapur who spread to Pokhara, Tansen and other places in Nepal. She’s newly enlightened.
Thus we become friends. The next morning, when she discovers that I haven’t had my breakfast yet, she voluntarily orders food from the hospital’s caterers so that she can administer my before-and-after-meal medicines.
•••
‘My God, you look just like my Dad!’ It’s a new nurse entering my cabin for the night’s medication. Her nametag shows Shah, the first name is covered by the pendants she wears. Nurse Shah is a Thakuri, as her elitist mannerisms demonstrate. “Buwa, you resemble my father!’ she says again while checking my blood pressure. ‘What’s your father’s good name?’ She mentions the name. ‘Are you from Battis Putali?’ ‘Yes! How do you know, Buwa?’ Well, her father and I spilled a few tipples together in the past. ‘Where’s he now?’ I ask. ‘Swarge hoisiyo!’ ‘When was that?’ ‘Four years ago.’ ‘I’m sorry!’
I’ll always remember Nurse Shah’s good cheers. ‘Have a nice day, Buwa!’ ‘Don’t worry, you’re doing better!’ ‘I’ll see you this evening! Until then!!’ She has finished her night shift and going home.
•••
Between a patient’s passage from the fast and moving emergency ward to the professional care in the cabin, there’s the middle distance interspersed with gossips, crybaby utterances, satires and backbiting among the orderlies, support staffs and other midrange workers.
Then there’s the elitist, feudal and high-caste behavior of those Nepali visitors who think they own the property and its people. One potbellied old man from a village in typical Kangresi Bahun attire has both his legs sprawled across the passage, making it difficult for our wheelchair to coast through. ‘This is what I don’t like about Nepal, Buwa,’ says Nurse Adhikari from Dang as she wheels me to the ultrasound theater. ‘‘It’s good that you realize this, Babu,’ I tell her: ‘Your generation must make the difference. Ours failed!’
•••
Yes, every nurse addresses me as ‘Buwa.’ But I’ve had enough of it. ‘Call me Hazur Buwa,’ I tell the four nurses doing their afternoon rounds in my cabin: ‘That’s more like it.’ ‘Ha-ha-ha!’ I challenge them, ‘But what’s your father’s age?’ One’s is 45 years old; the other’s is 49, and so on. ‘See? What’s your actual grandfather’s age?’ One’s is 62; the other’s 65, and so on. ‘But you don’t look like a hazur buwa’ is everyone’s comment. ‘Didn’t you see my age on the chart?’ ‘Yes, we know – it’s 69 years. But so what?’ So we’re back to ‘Buwa.’
•••
The median age of these professionals stands at 22 years. So most of them were not even imagined in 2046 (‘Chhyalis’) Saal, or 1990 AD, when the People’s Popular Movement or the 2nd Democratic Revival took place in Nepal. The decades of absolute Panchayat monarchy reduced to a constitutional one for King Birendra are fairytales to them. Even the Maoist Movement and the 10-year People’s War, begun in 1996 – the very ensuing decade of their schooldays – have no import whatsoever on them.
This is a strange breed, I say, and how the political leaders and their parties will deal with this gainfully employed youth group in the coming days of anticipated elected governance is simply out of my own grasp. Is Nepal’s civic society aware of this potent economic and professional power group?
•••
I leave Norvic International Hospital after ten days and nights. My discharge is confirmed when a new nurse dismantles the cannula contrivance on my wrist. Dr JP Jaiswal has cleared my chest excruciated by chronic bronchitis while Dr Ramesh K Chokhani has treated my asthmatic bronchitis.
As soon as I reach home, I enter the bathroom for a cold luxuriant shower in 12 days and shave my Fu Manchu whiskers.
The new tribe of nurses
Of course, the new tribe of nurses in Kathmandu isn’t like those missionary-trained-and-imbued blue-and-white sari-clad Florence Nightingales I saw at Shanta Bhavan and Patan Hospital, nor like those at the private hospitals in Bangkok, or even at the Cook County clinics in Chicago. I found my Nepali nurses by and large clinically aloof and carefully distant, in designed dress uniforms; and the ‘dirty,’ ‘excremental’ and phlegmatic chores of bedpans, spittoons and constipational hazards are handled by other castes of Nepalis employed for such menial tasks. While I found most nurses physically delicate and not strong enough to support a doddering patient or a fainting one, I also saw not a single male nurse or minder in the hospital.
No wonder Nepal’s pioneering nurses were liberal Nepali women from outside when Nepal’s own hidebound caste-and-class conventions spat on the profession. Something of the same air still prevails in Nepal; the mindset of an entrenched value system reflects on today’s nurses, too.
The old Nepali society also considered such female caregivers as sexual playthings – as one old MaHa comedic ‘prahasan’ on Bir Hospital’s “Sisters” has it.
The writer is Copy Chief at The Week/Republica.
pjkarthak@gmail.com
Related story
Kathmandu metropolis to launch night bus service from April 14
_20220508065243.jpg)
