Fotojournalist Erlend Berge

Urban youngsters and rural farmers. Former monks and craftsmen. From all ethnic groups and religions. The patients who have shared their lives in this book are diverse. Together they make up the impressive huge number of people being treated at Patan Hospital every year. Behind the statistics, there are people who all have a story to tell. Of gratitude to the hospital staff who helped them in their moments of despair. Stories of debt and struggle to pay the hospital bill. Stories of hope and personal crisis. Stories of life and death. And stories of love.

My work in Kathmandu is finished and I’m flying home tomorrow. Still there is a lot of editing left. Hopefully we will get the book «Living Kathmandu – The view from Patan Hospital» printed in July.

Life in Tibet was too hard for Nawang Tenzing. He had to get out. He walked for 25 days, crossed the border in the high Himalayas into Nepal and joined a monastry in Solukhombo, the district of Mount Everest. He had only been a buddhist monk for a year when he met Thaden Lama, also from Tibet. Of course, monks can not fall in love and they definitely can not be a couple at the monastery. “There were no way we could continue as monks. We confessed our relationship to the Lamas and they let us go,” tells Nawang.

Now they have been married for two and a half years. Life is hard as newcomers in the Nepalese capital. Both unemployed, Nawang makes necklaces, earning a little over $500 a year, barely enough to pay for their room in Boudha, one of the biggest settlements for tibetans in Kathmandu. “I feel like a stranger in this country. Maybe life would have been better at the monastery. There we would have safety with food and clothes.”

Instead they chose love. Now they got each other and a new life, but their life as a family is not complete without a son or a daughter. It has become their biggest dream and their biggest burden.

“Two miscarriages and a sick child. We both thought we did something wrong, a great sin, since everything was going against us,” says Nawang. After two miscarriages, 32 year old Thaden has been deeply worried for her unborn son. 30 weeks into labor, she had to come to the hospital for an emergency Caesarean section. Weighing only 2.9 pounds, her precious child was vulnerable outside the comfort of the mothers womb. On his second day of life, their son was shifted to the new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which offers 24 hours monitoring. He developed heavy breathing and very low blood pressure. Without the support from the NICU, he would not have survived.

Nawang roams the hallway. There is an anxious and desperate look on his face. Some days are better than others. Their new born gain weight, he is taken off ventilation and oxygen, and then the situation worsens again and he starts breating heavily. Premature babies often face difficulty in breathing due to their immature lungs. They require respiratory support such as oxygen supplementations and mechanical ventilators. Nawang and Thadens son was in a critical condition. He had all common problems for premature babies.

In the US, the cost of his treatment would be about $250,000. Because of the donations of equipment, the much lower salaries of staff and the efficient way the hospital is run, Nawang and Thaden’s final bill was $2,000. Still this type of treatment economically cripples their family. “We have already spent all our money,” says Thaden.

Many families are helped by grants from the charity fund, but unfortunately there is not enough charity money and many go home in debt. “The ICU-care is expensive. Some parents wants a 100 percent guarantee from the doctors that their child will be better. If not, they won’t spend the money on their premature child for an uncertain outcome. But we can’t give guarantees nor can we assure the parents that everything will be alright. Prematures can have several problems and can have neuro-developmental issues later,” says pediatrician at Patan Hospital, Shrijana Shrestha.

«Living Kathmandu». Det blir trolig tittelen på boka fra Patan Hospital, men fortsatt gjenstår mye arbeid. Jeg har to uker igjen i Kathmandu og det er flere historier jeg ønsker å fortelle. Les historien om de to tibetanske munkene som møttes på et kloster i Himalaya. For noen uker siden fikk de sin førstefødte.

Det har vist seg å bli et omfattende og krevende prosjekt. Jeg gleder meg til å ha boka i handa en gang i sommer…

Hvorfor en bok fra et sykehus i Kathmandu?