Mathura Prasad Shrestha

Abstract

Public health expert, human rights activist, and former Health Minister of Nepal. Born on May 6, 1936 in Kathmandu, Nepal, he died of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on Feb 20, 2023 in Kathmandu, aged 86 years. Regarded as a champion of public health in Nepal, Mathura Prasad Shrestha was also an educator and human rights activist “who dared to stand against the atrocities of the state and inspired courage in people”, said Mahesh Maskey, the Founding Chair and Executive Chief of the Nepal Public Health Foundation in Kathmandu, Nepal, and former Ambassador of Nepal to China. A civil society leader in the People's Movement that brought an end to Nepal's absolute monarchy in 1990, Shrestha was named Minister of Health in the interim government that was subsequently established. He “contributed to making the 1990 democracy movement a success in Nepal”, said Rita Thapa, a public health physician and the former Director of the Department of Health Systems and Community Health in the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, who currently serves as Pro-Bono Executive Director of the Bhaskar-Tejshree Memorial Foundation, Nepal. “He had an unwavering commitment to health justice.” Shrestha received his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1961 from Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India. After graduating, he served as the Medical Officer In-Charge for a number of district hospitals in India, before returning to Nepal in 1969 to become Resident Medical Officer of Bir Hospital in Kathmandu. 3 years later he was named Senior Medical Officer and Chief of Bharatpur Hospital in Bharatpur, Nepal. In 1975, he transitioned into education, where he would “lay the groundwork for public health education, community-oriented medical education, and public health contributions in Nepal”, Maskey said. Shrestha became an Associate Professor in Tribhuvan University's Department of Community Medicine in Kathmandu, even as he pursued a master's degree in community health from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK, which he received in 1978. In 1980, he was elevated to Professor and Chair of Tribhuvan University's Department of Community Medicine. Over the decade that he held that position, “he played an immense role in the training and education of health professionals in Nepal”, said Shiva Raj Mishra, a Nepali researcher who is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Medicine and Health in Australia, encouraging them to consider “the social policies, the factors [that influence health] at the family level, the district level, and the country level.” Shrestha also organised reading groups for his younger colleagues, including Maskey. “He developed that kind culture of reading and exchanging views among young scholars, which helped us very much to develop our ideas.” By the time the People's Movement for multiparty democracy in Nepal emerged in 1990, Shrestha was already an activist and the Founding President of the Forum for the Protection of Human Rights, a national human rights organisation. He became increasingly involved in the People's Movement, speaking out about the brutal crackdown by the police. “Instead of warning shots, there was an intention to kill the demonstrators”, Maskey said. Shrestha “wasn’t afraid to say that in front of a camera. The medical community became very motivated.” At one point, Maskey recalled, Shrestha was forced to hide out in a hospital. “Even though the police knew he was there, they would not dare to go inside the hospital,” Maskey said. “That's the one thing that saved him.” The king ultimately capitulated in the face of massive protests, paving the way for multiparty politics in Nepal. Shrestha was named Health Minister in the interim government that took power. “Just after the first democratic government, they founded so many policies that have been instrumental” to improving health in Nepal, Mishra said, “including the formation of the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC)”. After a year as Health Minister, Shrestha returned to teaching before being named Chair of the NHRC, where he worked until he retired in 1999 and shaped the country's health policy research agenda. “He put it on the proper track”, Maskey said. Shrestha is survived by three sons and a daughter. “He was very intelligent, a person who was truly multidimensional”, Maskey said. “He had the ability and the aptitude to take risks when the opportunity demanded it.”