Alice in Nepal
Alice Gray, part of the Oasis Leadership Team and Staff Team, is spending several months in Nepal in early 2024. In this article, originally posted on Alice’s Medium Page here, she explains a little bit about where she’s going, what she’s doing, and how you can be praying for her whilst she’s away.
Well hello and I’m glad you found yourself here today! Hopefully you know me, and this was an intentional find. Otherwise, your googling has got you very lost…
For you lost souls, let me give you a bit of an introduction. I am a UK based palliative care junior doctor (ST5 for those who are interested) and this blog is a combination of updates and reflections on my four month trip to volunteer as a palliative care doctor with a health and development charity called ‘International Nepalese Fellowship’ (I’ll give you 1 guess where they work).
What will you be doing? Good question. A lot of this will be worked out there and working in this sort of setting requires flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of the moment. Primarily, there will be some clinical need. I will be working some of the time at Green Pastures hospital in Pokhara on the palliative care unit. I will unpack this a bit more in future blogs as palliative care looks different in each setting I have worked in, and will probably look different to what you have been familiar with before. My second role will be teaching and training clinicians to do palliative care in their setting, as part of the ‘Sunita project’. Again I will unpack this in future blogs but basically this involves travelling out to the rural hospitals and running seminars and training programmes.
Why? The details would require a long sit down together over a coffee but in summary access to pain relief and freedom from suffering is a human right. But yet only 14% of people across the world have access to palliative and end of life care. As a follower of Jesus, I want to be His hands and feet in this world to see it become more like the world God designed it to be, ‘your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven’ (if you’re familiar with the Lord’s prayer). I’ve been privileged to have received excellent medical training, have enough financial resources (we can discuss junior doctors’ strikes another time) and enough freedom in my personal life to be able to go and give a little of what I’ve received in a place that is equally going to teach and shape me.
How? For those medics who are intrigued as to how whilst being in training as a registrar I’ve managed to do this, my training programme director agreed for me to take an ‘out of programme experience’. A little bit of paperwork, and a bit of persuasion of the deanery that this will ‘contribute positively to the NHS’ and four months agreed. Easy to do and very much recommended to any who are considering….hint hint. My times out of training working in settings outside of the UK have only contributed to a better appreciation of the services and resources we have in the UK, as well as making me a more confident and experienced practioner. Win win!
Prayer points for you wonderful praying people
1. For the teams that I am leaving behind, my NHS team, youth team, alpha team and others who I recognise I am leaving a woman down. Blessings and excitement for those who are taking over projects and leadership positions that they might go from strength to strength
2. That I might be a blessing to all I meet. That something of the Spirit of the risen Jesus that is in me might overflow and bring life!
So finally, two word check in. What’s she talking about?! This is something I do with my youth group, where we use two words to describe where we’re at and so others in the room know how we’re feeling. So in this moment, apprehensive and expectant are my two. Apprehensive that I might be a blessing to the incredible people I’ll be working with, even in my fragility and humanity. But expectant because time and time again in recent weeks, God has promised me that He goes before me and is by my side. So whilst I go out on my own, I am never alone.
Lam 3v22–23 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
