LETS BRING SONAM TAMANG HOME
(A call to petition to bring our fellow Bhutanese back to Bhutan)

‘Someday I’ll be,
Living in a big old city,
And all you’re every gonna be is mean.

Someday I’ll be,
Big enough so you can’t hit me.
And all you’re ever gonna be is mean.’

This Taylor Swift song came to mind when I read the post about Dhan Maya from Namgay Zam right now.

The last article by The Bhutanese on this almost made me shed tears; it wasn’t so much for the patient in coma as for the family, especially the mother and what she was going through.

It’s a classic story of a working parent in Bhutan. This mother worked at a minimal salary job at Public Works Division, raised three children on that paycheck at a period in Bhutanese modernization when it was not a stroll in the park to do so; rents, school fees and utilities have been on the high rise.

And just when the daughter was finally at ease to provide her a well deserved retirement, something devastating like this happened.

When I read The Bhutanese article, I couldn’t help but think rationally and logically around my emotions and find some of the aspects entirely disappointing, outrageous and inhumane to a point.

First, youth like her having to go ‘abroad’ on a program as ridiculous as ‘Learn and Earn’, why couldn’t it be just ‘Earn’? This problem arose because of the inability of our government and people to provide sensible employment. I use the word sensible because a job that earns you anything less than Nu. 12,000 a month is insufficient for leading a normal ‘working’ life, especially in the capital. And I say people with government because we’re a democratic country for crying out loud; not North Korea and if there’s an issue like this that affects an entire population, we must make sure the government does something about it with no grey zones.

Second, while thinking rationally and logically on such a sentimental topic; I couldn’t help but be outraged when I read the Labor Minister’s comment that it was beyond our ‘means’ to bring Sonam back to Bhutan. I commented this on The Bhutanese post. She’s on life support and if we don’t have this kind of medical equipments in our hospitals here, I guess it’ll have to be a quick bye-bye for the citizens who fall sick. And if we have these equipments here, we can charter one aircraft from two of the national airlines and ‘medically’ fly her back. We aren’t negotiating a ‘terrorist’ or ‘prisoner’ repatriation; how complicated is it for our ‘highly qualified and paid’ politicians to maneuver such formalities?

Third, a quarter of the world population has latent TB in our bodies. Which means we carry the virus dormantly and are at higher risk of it going active. This has been linked to vaccination norms in Asia and I won’t be shocked to know our entire population has latent TB. I always tested positive for TB in the United States where they don’t mind performing such tests multiple times a year.

It didn’t take a doctorate research and knowledge for me to figure out and ‘research’ using my phone that Sonam was probably in coma because of Tuberculosis Meningitis. And here, from personal experiences; I had to literally beg, cry, argue to a point of senselessness with some doctors and use legal references just to get a CT scan, even after I repeatedly told them I felt like I needed one (and I was right when the reports came out). And now they be sayin’ we can’t bring Sonam here despite all these issues? Outrageous.

Being in the know about the risks of Tuberculosis for our population, our healthcare system should have ‘taken preventive measures’ in the form of awareness creation for citizens leaving the country on a long term basis, especially when they leave for a program like the ridiculous ‘Learn and Earn’ where obviously the stress factors to keep the immune system in its prime condition can be compromised. It’s not a stroll in the park working two ‘low level’ jobs in a developed country and attend school at the same time. I hope everyone who goes for such programs henceforth have the agencies sign your own ‘legal’ agreements, promising to get you back home if you shall ever be unlucky to face such a tragedy.

Another example, a family member came back home from India with abdominal tuberculosis. He had to be on the ‘wrong’ medication for a month before they figured he wasn’t getting better and then only switch to another treatment.

Where are we going wrong or missing the services for those who have to leave the country to get ‘higher’ education or work, only to come back home to unemployment and mediocre healthcare? And since we have no form of ‘complete’ medical insurance and protection in this ‘free’ healthcare system, who and how will the bills for treatments abroad be paid? What if you get a stroke while on vacation abroad?

While the outpouring of ‘financial’ and emotional support for Sonam from fellow citizens have been heartwarming; can we keep this up when one person increases to 1,000? Our country has always been outstanding when it comes to communal unity in such tragedies but can we keep up with this? What about the patient dying silently without our knowing, because we have no chemotherapy facilities in Bhutan?

In the end, Sonam, her mother and family do not deserve this. Neither do we. No one does. So who do we blame?

If our emotional support for our country can be transfused to logical and rational support, no Bhutanese and the Bhutanese society will go through such a disheartening and sentimental tragedy.

One Nu. can make Nu. 2 million. As we saw in this situation.
One signature on a petition, can bring Sonam home and ensure none of us go through such a tragedy again.

We have no space for sentimentality anymore, it’s gotta be action or prepare to stay that way. And we can’t ‘afford’ to stay the same anymore.