A NEPALI NURSE WITH NIGHTINGALE'S HEART

Prabha Sharma used to read books on Florence Nightingale, an English nurse who helped soldiers of the Crimean war (October 1853 – February 1856) when she was young. Sharma was so much influenced by the life of the Lady with the Lamp that she decided her to pursue a career in nursing. However, Sharma's parents turned down her request to become a nurse. "Girls in my family weren't allowed to work. Becoming a nurse was very difficult for me," says Sharma with a smile as she goes down memory lane.



As the saying goes, hope shines brightest in the darkest of times. A small ray of light did shine for Sharma when her schoolteacher filled her form for nursing and asked her elder brother to sign it as Sharma's guardian. “I wanted to stand on my own feet,” Sharma shares. With her brother’s signature on the application, Sharma’s journey to become a nurse started. She has now spent four decades in the profession and continues to cherish her decision to become a nurse.

After passing her PCL in nursing in 1970 from Bir Hospital under government’s scholarship, Sharma started working at the hospital as a Staff Nurse. “I got a chance to work at Bir, while some of my batch mates were sent to different hospitals across the country,” Sharma shares.



During her stay at the hospital, Sharma received training in intensive care from Japanese nurses, and later qualified for a German scholarship scheme for nurses. In Germnay, too, she received training in ICU and Coronary Care Unit (CCU). “Four medical practitioners, Dhananjay Prasad Rimal, Dr. Pushkar Raj Satal, Nirmala Joshi, a technician named Gangalal Shrestha and I went to West Germany,” Sharma shares, adding that from there, she and Nirmala went to Veniceburg University to receive training in hemodialysis.



Although both could have become the country’s first nurses trained in hemodialysis, Joshi never stepped into the field. So, Sharma became the country’s first nurse trained in dialysis service. After completing her training, Sharma worked in Germany for two years.



Sharma was still in Germany when her mother died back in Nepal. She had already lost her father at the tender age of 12. Her mother's death was too much to bear with. So, she chose not to come back to Nepal, and instead went to the UK where she worked at St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London for two years. Thus, she became the first registered Nepali nurse in the UK.



Sharma’s eyes well up with tears when she talks about her mother's demise. She wipes her tears and says, “I just did not feel like coming back to Kathmandu. Instead, I went to the UK and later, to the United States.” After staying for two years in the States, Sharma returned home and rejoined Bir Hospital.



Bir Begins dialysis service in Nepal



A decade after Sharma received her training in hemodailysis, Bir Hospital started dialysis at the joint initiative of Dr. Rishi Kumar Kafle and Sharma on Sept. 29, 1988. However, the hospital treated only clean cases (those who were not positive of tuberculosis and hepatitis).



On April 8, 1997, Sharma collaborated with Dr. Kafle to start the Healthcare Foundation-Nepal, (HECAF-N) a non-profit and non-governmental organization to treat clean as well as positive cases of dialysis. “During the last years of my stay at Bir, a patient came for dialysis. However, his blood test showed that he had TB. Since Bir didn't treat positive cases (it still doesn't), he was left to die. Then we thought of starting the National Kidney Center (NKC) under HECAF-N,” Sharma shares.



Since its establishment, HECAF-N has been training nurses in dialysis treatment. It has also helped start dialysis service at the Military Hospital, Teaching Hospital, Nepal Medical College, and a few hospitals at Nepalgunj, Pokhara and Bharatpur.