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Former nun reminisces about her time in Bangladesh

Pia Fischer, 74, used to belong to the order of the Sisters of the Holy Cross of Menzingen but a visit to Bethlehem changed her life.
 
In 1969, when Fischer was 31, she went to Bethlehem on behalf of the convent to help train nurses at a children's hospital. She stayed there for two years, and was witness to much poverty and suffering, which had a deep effect on her. When she returned to Menzingen she felt restless and isolated in the cloistered world of the convent. "I wanted a different life and I wanted a family," she said.
 
It was while working at the Triemli hospital in Zurich that she met a colleague who told about the work of the Swiss Red Cross in Bangladesh, and, as soon as 1972, Fischer found herself out there.
 
Recently Fischer came across a collection of letters she had written home and which her father had kept. On very thin paper and by using a typewriter, she had written, "The people here are dissatisfied with the government; their expectations have not been fulfilled." (East Pakistan, as it was until 1971, had recently separated from West Pakistan.) She also described the terrible conditions in the nearby refugee camp she used to visit, where there were frequent epidemics of disease. "Patients came to the hospital with stab and shot wounds," she added.
 
Fischer was particularly drawn to the plight of the children at the hospital where premature babies and children with highly infectious diseases were kept in the same ward. She decided she would make it her aim to improve the level of hygiene there.
 
The nurse also took special care of a 6-month-old baby, Nazma. It was with her help that Nazma was able to be brought to Switzerland for treatment.
 
Fischer also managed to get supplies of medicine sent over from Switzerland and spent days translating the package inserts into English.
 
Despite the extreme heat and humidity, Fischer persevered with her work, helped considerably by her faith. She enjoyed going to the cathedral to pray and even got to know some Swiss men who were working in Dhaka. She has fond memories of flying to Chittagong in an old Swiss-made Pilatus Porter aeroplane as well as of visits to neighbouring Thailand and India.
 
Rather than stay for just 6 months, Fischer extended her visit to a year. Before returning to Switzerland she also spent some time at the hospital run today by Beat Richner in Cambodia. "There were terrible conditions there, too," she added. "There was no soap and no mattresses. We had to get what we could from the market. Then there was a great fear of American fire bombs, dropped to destroy the camouflage of Vietcong soldiers." One day she walked out of a restaurant to find bodies everywhere following an explosion.
 
After 5 weeks there she returned to Switzerland to start another job. "When I got home I was shocked by all the excess and unnecessary waste," she recalled.
 
Following her return Fischer had the family she so much longed for, two daughters, and settled in Oberwil. She has never returned to Bangladesh, nor Cambodia but she would recommend anyone who has the opportunity to go and work there to take it and to see how so many people in the world live and, if possible, help them.


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