Sept. 23 2009-The auditorium was heated, there were free pizzas and drinks, and 82 Boulder residents were asked the question “What are you doing for someone else?” Seemed like a pretty basic question, and University of Colorado at Boulder professor Dr. Jim Lopresti gave a pretty basic answer: “I was doing nothing.”
Lopresti, who spoke on behalf of taking your profit to the next step, was introducing social entrepreneur and Nepali medic Anil Parajuli, who spoke at the University of Colorado at Boulder campus Sept 23 to a crowd of students, parents, and Boulder locals trying to make a difference. Lopresti’s introduction paved the way for esteemed Ashoka fellow and Nepali native Parajuli to give an 80-minute presentation on the current healthcare situation of Nepal, what efforts he was taking to improve them, and what the Boulder community could do to help.
The end of the speech had moved the audience to a standing ovation and stimulated many private conversations with Parajuli after.
“I am haunted by this face,” he began, describing a story about one of his medical treks. “I’d thought he was a pile of rags at first, lying down by the fire.” The pile, as it turned out, was a young boy who had a spinal infection that developed into three types of tuberculosis. Parajuli had him stabilized with available medicine, but the meager hospital in the next village could not treat him properly; he died there.
Parajuli cited many other instances in which the Nepali hospitals failed the poverty-stricken people of rural Nepal. In one case, a mother literally had to choose which child to save. Her baby was sick and needed to be taken to a distant hospital, but if she left her other children alone, their cows would die.
“I could not imagine making such a choice,” Parajuli said. Luckily, a neighbor agreed to watch over the house and the infant was saved. Others have not been as fortunate.
“Nepal is one of the least developed countries in the world and suffers from extreme levels of poverty, particularly in rural regions,” Parajuli cited in a PowerPoint presentation.
He spoke to Boulder on behalf of Himalayan HealthCare, a non-profit group that trains local health providers in Nepal in order to provide proper healthcare. Parajuli emphasized the role natives play in the program. They can serve as midwives, auxiliary health workers, or traveling medics. “[Himalayan HealthCare] encourages local participation and involvement in all of its programs to ensure sustainability of benefits,” Parajuli stated from the Himalayan HealthCare Web site.
He spoke of the flexibility in the program, and adapting to Nepali lifestyles as well.
“Black smiths are the dentists now,” he said, showing paradoxical pictures of patients sitting in a room akin to a barn with modern dental drills in their mouths, while cattle strolled in and out of the “facility.”
Parajuli used pictures throughout the presentation, many of which provided insight into his stories. He was talking about children who were dying outside health posts and then showing photographs of their helpless mothers. Though he provided information on the current efforts of the Nepali government to address this dire situation, he stated that more could be done. Currently, access to medical care has been extended to 13,000 people in Nepal via Himalayan HealthCare, a small success when there is an entire country to improve.
One step has been partnering with the Boulder chapter of GlobeMed, an organization dedicated to strengthening the movement for global health equity, and the one responsible for bringing Parajuli to Boulder. Both groups aim to increase available healthcare in Nepal, and Parajuli ended his speech by encouraging locals to get involved with this group. GlobeMed member William Narracci attended the presentation and helped sell Nepali handicrafts to the audience afterward.
Parajuli’s presentation can best be summed up by a photo from the Godak Village medical camp: a Nepali woman treats an infant with big brown eyes and no shirt while her sister and mother, both with collarbones sticking out, wait. The mother holds her baby with wrists like twigs, her daughter staring at the stethoscope with curiosity. Help is on the way, and it is very much needed.
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