Barahathawa (Sarlahi), 21 January: Devraj Poudel of Lalbandi Municipality-12, Dapkali, went abroad for employment at a young age to bring happiness to his family. Far from bringing happiness, he was forced to return home after an accident during employment and lost half of his body. He has been using a wheelchair for the past three years.
The only support of the family has been the loss of his family after the accident. On 20 January 2021, he had gone to Saudi Arabia for foreign employment. After returning from work on the night of 13 January 2022, he had gone to the market with his friend.
His life took an unexpected turn when the car he was driving met with an accident while returning from the market. He had worked as a driver while in Nepal and had driven tippers and school buses for various construction companies. He had reached Saudi Arabia on the advice of his family after facing problems in supporting his family.
“It only happens when I work abroad,” he said, “but after the accident, the company also showed negligence, which led to my situation.” The police immediately took him to the hospital after the accident at 1 am. He regained consciousness only after six hours. In the morning, he was in the hospital bed, he said, “My body was shaking. I couldn’t even touch a glass of water with my hands, so a Nepali nurse gave me water.”
He has undergone surgery and has a steel plate placed on his neck. He initially had a problem with his body after an accident, and he thought he would recover. But later, the doctor said that his body might not be the same as before because of a broken neck bone and an injury to a nerve, so he said that it was like falling off a cliff. “I left my two-year-old daughter and went to earn the happiness of my family,” he said. “Now I have to spend the rest of my life on the support of others,” he said.
At first, he was worried about what would happen to him for the rest of his life. He spent many nights without food or sleep. He felt completely alone while abroad. After returning home, his wife and daughter’s faces haunted him for a long time. He said that he is now trying to control himself. When he remembers the past days, his throat is constantly trying to get blocked. He still has a great dream to do whatever is appropriate for his body and support his family for the rest of his life.
He says that although the company initially showed some interest in the treatment, it later stopped caring. “For nine months, the company left him in a neglected hospital, his body was not moving. Others had to take care of him. The nurses would only come once or twice a day. They would give him medicine and leave. They would bring him food. I couldn’t even eat without moving my hands. I had to wait for someone to come,” he said.
When the company stopped caring, he told the company to send him home if he did not take the medicine, but the company did not care. After pleading, the embassy staff, through the efforts of his nephew who was in the UK, urged the company. Then the company discharged him from the hospital and sent him to Nepal after 15 days. He is sad that he did not care even after he pleaded many times with the Nepali Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
He still worries about whether he would have been able to move some parts of his body if he had been rescued from the hospital on time. He says that the nine months he spent in a hospital in a foreign country felt like an era. After returning to Nepal, his family immediately took him to the Orthopedic Hospital in Jorpati, Kathmandu. He says that he returned home after spending three months there without any improvement in treatment. He is also doing some of the exercises he did in the hospital regularly at home.
He expressed his sorrow that he had problems with his daughter’s education and family livelihood after he was unable to move half of his body and had to rely on others to get up and down. “I had inherited six acres of land and eight and a half acres of land from my ancestors,” he said. “I built a one-story wooden house with the money I received from the insurance company because I had problems with bamboo. The produce from the farm barely suffices for half a year. How will I meet the expenses for my daughter’s education and some medical treatment?”
Stating that it has always been a problem for his wife to support the family through her work alone, he said that he wants to do his best to help his family. “I have seen and heard that physically disabled people work to the best of their ability and help their families,” he said, “I also want to do something. I don’t have any investment. If someone helped me from somewhere, I would become an exemplary figure in society.”
Poudel complained that he had not received the scholarship from the Department of Foreign Employment. He said that although there is a provision for children of those who have lost their lives or are disabled in foreign employment to receive scholarships for higher education, he had not received it. “I went with the documents after learning that the scholarship was available,” he said, “I returned after being told that the amount for your insurance has not been completed, and you will not get it. Even if I had received that much, there would have been more for my daughter’s education.”
Poudel said that his eight-year-old daughter studies in the nursery class at a school near the village, while his wife, after taking care of him and his daughter, spends the rest of her time raising livestock and farming to earn a living. Sabina Poudel, who studied up to grade 9, said that even though her husband is physically disabled, she would be able to support him and his daughter if given the opportunity.
He said that he has repeatedly requested the local level for the necessary assistance. I also filled out the form for the job of an office assistant. What happened, it did not work. I would have worked if I had received some professional training and investment. He demands that the local government make some arrangements for those who have been in trouble due to various accidents to live a comfortable life.
Ward chair Durga Bahadur Ale said that there is no such budget in the ward. The municipality itself has been including such poor citizens in income-generating programs. “There is no such plan and budget in the ward,” he said, “In such a situation, the municipality has been managing it. I am also taking initiatives to address their problems. Let’s see if anything can be done?” He said that the Prime Minister is also thinking about employment and other assistance.
