Nepal Hospice Cares for the Dying Near Famed Temple

[krsna]

Nepal Hospice Cares for the Dying Near Famed Temple

 

http://news.newkerala.com/world-news/index.php?

action=fullnews&showcomments=1&id=24917

 

KATHMANDU, NEPAL, June 24, 2004: The temple of Lord Pashupatinath here,

one of the holiest Hindu shrines, is also a haven for the dying. If you

die there, according to popular Hindu belief, you are freed from the

cycle of rebirth and pain. The Pashupati Arya Ghat Sewa Kendra is a

three-storey building housing the very old and the terminally ill whom

hospitals have discharged. One of them is 81-year-old Jagat Bahadur

Thapa, who lay comatose on his makeshift bed on the floor. A man,

playing a harmonium, softly chanted: "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna." The

writing on the wall behind Thapa's head said: "I am breathing my last.

Don't make a din but let me hear the name of God. He Ram!"

 

Gomali Khadka, 53, came with her daughter and two sons to seek

salvation for her husband Bahadur Khadka. The 64-year-old had a chest

problem and the hospital said there was nothing more they could do. "So

we brought him here," said a stoic Gomali. "If he doesn't recover, I

pray he is spared the additional pain of rebirth." But before death can

claim the arrivals, it has to grapple with one last obstacle. That is

the ghate vaidya, literally, the doctor of the river bank steps, who

takes over when hospitals and doctors have given up. At present, there

are two of them, Subarna Vaidya, 54, and his brother Sarda, 49. Their

family members have been ayurveda practitioners for generations. The

brothers say they learnt to gauge if a man's pulse and energy were

failing him from their father Bharat Vaidya, who was the ghate vaidya

before them.

 

The progression of a patient towards death is marked literally. If he

is ill but not dying, he is kept on a bed on the topmost floor where

the brothers treat him using ayurveda principles. If his condition

deteriorates, he is brought to the first floor. When he goes into a

coma, he is brought to the ground floor where in preparation for the

last rites, the bed gives way to a raised wooden platform. Once the

vaidya judges that the time of death is near, he is taken to the last

step of the riverbank, and kept so that his feet touch water, to ensure

that his soul will go to heaven when he breathes his last. Since the

last eight years, 1,803 people have come here. Some of them have even

recovered, like 92-year-old Kashi Nath Uprety who was comatose two

years. The hospice can take 22 patients, thanks to donors. Everything

is free - right from medicines to bedclothes to food. Ghate vaidyas,

Sarda says, are a part of Nepal's tradition. "We are paid Nepali Rs.150

a month, which is a pittance," he says. "Still we do it because this is

a way of conserving something unique to Nepal."