Health & Healing
Fourteen Years On
Fourteen years ago, Durga Maya BK fell from a tree near her home in Dulegauda, Tanahun. The spinal injury left her without the use of both legs.
What followed was years of adjustment — and, through INF Nepal's Green Pastures Hospital, years of care. When she needed somewhere to live, INF helped build her a home close to the hospital that continues to support her.
She is pictured here outside Green Pastures with her son. She has not made this journey alone.
Last year...
5856
participants were trained in disability awareness
6,000+
counselling sessions were provided
27,919
individuals & households were reached with leprosy early detection, treatment, and stigma reduction
The Problem
Distance is not the only barrier
Nepal has made significant public health progress in recent decades. But that progress has not reached everyone equally. In remote hill and mountain districts, in communities marked by disability, the gap between the health system and the people who most need it remains wide.
The barriers are overlapping and reinforcing. Distance. Cost. Stigma. Gender norms make it difficult for women to seek care independently. Disability makes clinics physically inaccessible. Climate disruption washes out roads and closes crossing points.
Belonging is a right
Across nine districts in Nepal, INF Australia's partners are working to remove the barriers that keep people with disabilities from full participation in community life. Not only as recipients of support, but as voices shaping it.
Last year, participation of people with disabilities in INF-supported projects doubled. Six disability organisations and 18 networks were actively involved in programme design, planning, and decision-making. Their expertise is built into the work from the beginning.
5,856 staff and community members received training in inclusive practice, shifting not just physical environments but the attitudes that shape them.
At Green Pastures Hospital in Pokhara, hundreds of people received specialist care, rehabilitation, and assistive devices through the Healing Hope Fund, services many could not otherwise access or afford.
Beyond clinical care, 502 people with disabilities connected with livelihood opportunities, and 354 were supported to generate income and access government entitlements they were eligible for but had never been able to claim.
The continuing work of leprosy care
INF came to Nepal in 1952 partly because of leprosy — and because the people it affected were among the most excluded in Nepali society. The medical care, the dignity-first practice, and the advocacy that INF pioneered in leprosy communities laid the foundation for everything that followed.
Leprosy is now rare in Nepal. But rarity is not the same as absence — and the consequences of leprosy, disability, social exclusion, and the persistence of stigma that can outlast the disease by decades, have not disappeared with the case numbers.
INF's health work still reaches these communities. Last year:
- 27,919 individuals and households were reached through early detection, treatment, stigma reduction, and community contact tracing
- 300 new cases were detected, each one caught before consequences became permanent
- 112 people received leprosy medication
- 3,549 people, including Female Community Health Volunteers, mothers' groups, and local government representatives — were educated about leprosy transmission, treatment, and the rights of those affected
Early detection is where the outcome changes. A diagnosis made in time means treatment, not disability.
Community mobilisers: the first point of care
INF's health work invests heavily in community mobilisers: women and men from within communities who are trained to provide basic care, health education, referral support and early detection. They are the person in the village who knows which household hasn't seen a health worker this year, and goes to find them.
They are trained by INF's local partner organisations in maternal health, child nutrition, disability-inclusive care, mental health support, and disease prevention. They are the primary mechanism through which INF reaches the people who would otherwise not access care at all.
Mental health: care for what can't be seen
Mental health remains deeply stigmatised across Nepal. The care gap is enormous and largely unacknowledged in the formal health system.
INF's health work includes specific mental health components: community education to reduce stigma, identification and referral of people in mental health crisis, and advocacy for people with psychosocial disabilities to be included in community life.
Disability-inclusive health
Most health programmes are designed for people who can get there. INF designs for people who can't.
That means clinics that people with disabilities can physically access, communication methods that don't exclude them, and the assumption — built into programme design from the start — that independent access is the goal, not an afterthought.
Last year, 296 people with disabilities received disability-specific support: assistive devices, disability cards, and medical treatment. A further 563 people received specialised footwear and foot devices, including MCR-Insoles, which protect against the nerve damage and ulceration that often accompany long-term disability and leprosy.
Maternal and child health
In remote Nepal, a woman is around 100 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in Australia. Distance is not just an inconvenience — it is a life-or-death variable.
Malnutrition continues to affect young children's development. INF's health programmes address these through community health workers trained in ante-natal and post-natal support, community nutrition groups, and the sustained household contact that a single clinic visit cannot replace.
80% of Nepali people living with a disability have no access to the specialist medical care that could transform their lives. INF Nepal’s vision is to bring healing and hope to people with a disability, their families, and communities through specialist hospitals and community outreach programs.
