Healing Hand
An American family aims to support hundreds of people living in remote parts of Nepal
By A CORRESPONDENT
In the quest to give peace to departed soul of their son, Nick Simons, the couple Jim and Marilyn Simons of New York has already visited Nepal half a dozen times since September 2003. >From Dadeldhura of far-western region to Mustang and Tansen of western region, and Jiri of central region, this couple has traveled wide and far to witness the conditions of Nepalese people living in rural areas. After their visit, they identified health as an area, which needs a lot of attention and which can bring a lot of improvement in people’s lives.
Nick Simons Institute (NSI) – a memorial to their late son Nick Simons- has been founded in Kathmandu with an aim to facilitate high quality health care training, to provide retention incentives for rural health care workers and award scholarship for health care leaders.
Despite certain progress in health care system, the access to health services remain very poor in Nepal as the country has high infant mortality rate as well as maternal mortality rate. More than 575 mothers die out of 10,000 mothers at the time of delivery and more than 100 children die before completing five years.
The distribution of health care workers is very much unequal. The urban areas like Kathmandu has highest prevalence of doctors whereas the remote parts of Nepal do not have such manpower where hospitals and health posts are staffed by unskilled workers.
After their young son late Nick Simons, who came to Nepal in 2002 and worked here for brief 9 months, tragically died in July 2003 in Bali Indonesia , the couple wanted to support Nepalese living in remote parts.
In their quest to do something in accordance with the wishes of their beloved son, Jim and Marilyn Simons came to Nepal two months after the death of their son to explore the funding of a memorial in his name.
Following their first trip, they committed to fund Patan Hospital 's new Maternity Ward Block, at a cost of US$ 2 million. This contribution did not satisfy them. The couple want to do more in health sector through improving the basic health systems.
Headed by former foreign minister Dr. Bhek Bahadur Thapa, the NSI has been founded with a team consisting of eight prominent persons including Dr. Mark Zimmerman, a renowned American physician with more than two decades long experience in Nepal , as an executive director to carry out care training and support through a network of partner institution and programs.
Surrounded by harsh geographical situation and other difficulties, smiling faces of Nepalese were what inspired Jim and Marilyn during their visits. "Wherever we went saw people with happy smile," said Marilyn Simons.
"We will be very satisfied if our small efforts can bring changes in the rural parts of Nepal providing much needed basic health services," said Jim and Marilyn who have provided Rs.380 million to establish NSI in memory of their son.
"We want to reduce the gap in urban and rural sector in terms of health services," said executive director Dr. Zimmerman. By supporting the establishment of NSI, Jim Simons and Marilyn Simons have shown that they can contribute to save the lives of poor people as wished by their beloved son late Nick Simons.
