Govinda K.C.

Govinda K.C. (Nepali: गोविन्द के.सी.) is a Nepali orthopaedic surgeon and philanthropic activist.

He is a professor of orthopaedics at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH), part of the Institute of Medicine, Nepal.

He is known for his humanitarian work and for his activism in favor of the independent academic functioning of the government medical institutions of Nepal, notably the Institute of Medicine and Patan Academy of Health Sciences.

His non-violent protests and fasts have successfully pressured the Nepali government and stakeholders to make change.

He studied at the Institute of Medicine in Nepal to become a Health Assistant (H.A.), the equivalent of a Physician Assistant in the U.S.

He was unaware that this was a step to becoming a doctor.

Upon completing his H.A., he got Ministry of Education scholarship to study for an M.B.B.S. in Bangladesh at Rajshahi Medical College.

After graduation, he worked at Bir Hospital.

He then received an M.S. in Orthopedic surgery from Dhaka University in Bangladesh.

Although he wanted to serve in a tertiary hospital and there was a shortage of orthopedic surgeons in Kathmandu, plans were made to transfer him to a rural hospital where there would be no facilities to practice orthopedics.

He resigned from Bir Hospital and joined the Institute of Medicine as a volunteer in 1994.

K.C. has preferred to use his professorship salary to provide services in remote areas of Nepal and has travelled internationally in response to natural calamities.

He has not taken funds from any non-governmental organizations (NGO) to provide these services.

Apart from his work in the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal, he financed these Nepalese and international humanitarian services himself.

TUTH offers K.C. a few weeks of vacation every year.

He spends this time at the most rural clinics in Nepal, which are unreachable by public transportation.

He often travels long distances by foot to reach the clinics.

In these clinics, he trains health workers to identify orthopaedic emergencies, provide emergency treatment, and if necessary, provide timely referrals.

He also organizes health camps in remote places.

He gives medications to people and makes the necessary arrangements to give free medical treatment when they come for further treatment in Kathmandu.

He has faced allegations of being a spy and an insurgent when he worked in health during the Maoists' insurgency.

The rural districts of Nepal had an outbreak of cholera some years ago.

Many doctors refused to go there, even if paid.

K.C. travelled to the afflicted areas to provide humanitarian aid, carrying the medicine on his back.

K.C. has travelled extensively to assist victims of international natural disasters.

In 2001, he spent three weeks in the Bhuj region in Gujarat, India, after the earthquake.

In 2005, he served in Northwest Pakistan for around 20 days after a disastrous earthquake.

After a cyclone in Myanmar in 2008, the government of Myanmar prevented foreign aid agencies from entering the country but admitted him for two weeks.

In 2010, he went to Haiti in the wake of the disastrous earthquake and served there for three weeks.

In 2011, he served flood victims in Pakistan for two weeks.

In 2013, he went to the Philippines to treat people affected by a tsunami there.

K.C. has been a prominent campaigner for medical sector reform in Nepal in response to public allegations of both corruption and undue political pressure to give medical college affiliation to facilities with inadequate infrastructure.

His ongoing advocacy over several years has included several lengthy personal hunger strikes, which have received extensive media coverage and successfully pressured authorities to make changes.

In January 2014, K.C. launched another hunger strike campaigning against the political appointment of a new dean of the IoM, which did not reflect seniority, as well as several other grievances.

Supporting this cause, the Medical Association of Nepal shut down all hospitals except for emergency services across the country.

The Nepal Medical Association called for mass resignation of doctors across the country, with almost a hundred doctors and professors resigning and announcing free medical camps in public places.

These collective actions appeared to have been successful, so K.C. broke his fast.

In 2015, K.C. announced a fifth hunger strike after the Nepalese government retracted from its agreement with him and his movement to regulate the opening of new medical colleges based on a report presented by a team of specialists led by Kedar Bhakta Mathema.

Chitralekha Yadav, Minister for Education, was accused of having made key amendments to the law to make way for the new Devdaha and Birat Medical colleges to be granted affiliation, beginning the dispute.

Law-makers led by CPN UML leader Rajendra Pandey staged protests in the Constituent Assembly demanding the affiliation to be granted before the report would be presented to the government.