{"id":18570,"date":"2026-09-22T05:49:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T17:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18570"},"modified":"2026-09-22T05:49:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T17:49:51","slug":"my-whole-world-stopped-nelson-donors-raise-30000-for-nepalese-womans-cancer-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18570","title":{"rendered":"‘My whole world stopped’ – Nelson donors raise $30,000 for Nepalese woman’s cancer surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donors have raised $30,000 for a Nelson-based Nepalese woman who needs life-saving surgery after a doctor discovered she had advanced thyroid cancer during a visa medical check.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Samira Basnet, 36, moved to New Zealand two years ago to study for her Master’s degree in Management Studies at NMIT.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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During a medical check-up for her post-study work visa application a month ago, the doctor noticed a lump on Basnet’s neck and referred her for further tests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“My whole world stopped when they said that it’s like 90 percent thyroid cancer,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Basnet said the diagnosis came as a shock because she had not noticed the lump, did not have any symptoms and otherwise felt fit and healthy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It’s very hard because it’s unexpected, no one expects like a big like shocking news like this,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It’s not spread, that’s the reason also I’m a little bit positive. It’s curable, it’s treatable, that’s the thing that keeps me going.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Basnet is ineligible for publicly-funded healthcare because she is not a New Zealand resident and does not currently hold the required work visa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said friends and family had been affected by Nepal’s deadly flood, including relatives who were still missing. The disaster meant she could not return to Nepal for treatment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“My parents call me every single day because they are just worried if I’m okay or not,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Basnet was referred to surgeon Dr Ros Pochin who said the cancer would continue to spread without treatment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Unfortunately, when I looked at her ultrasound and looked at her neck, I could tell that she had quite an advanced thyroid cancer,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pochin said the cancer had spread to Basnet’s neck muscles and lymph nodes but could be cured with surgery and treatment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Even when you’ve got nodes involved, we think that the survival rate is at 90 percent-plus at 10 years.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pochin said it was frustrating and upsetting to discover Basnet was not eligible for treatment, so she decided to do something about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I see cancer patients every day and I’m used to telling people bad news but also saying how I’m going to fix it,” Pochin said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“To be honest, I really can’t cope with telling somebody there’s bad news and knowing that it’s something that I could fix but not being able to fix it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The surgery cost around $26,000 but Pochin and anaesthetist Dr Katie Ben were not charging for their time. Basnet would also need radioactive iodine therapy in Christchurch at an estimated cost of $15,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pochin said the the Givealittle page she set up raised $30,000 in just four days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It was really heartening to see how much has been donated and when I’ve looked through the people, because I get notified for every donation, there are an awful lot of names that I imagine are Nepalese and the Nepalese community is doing it really hard already and yet here is everybody giving whatever they can,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nelson has the largest proportion of people of Nepalese origin among all regions in New Zealand as a result of the refugee resettlement programme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The surgery to remove Basnet’s thyroid and affected muscles and lymph nodes is booked for November.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pochin said the surgery and treatment meant Basnet would not be a burden on the health system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“She’s already built a life here. She wants to stay,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donors have raised $30,000 for a Nelson-based Nepalese woman who needs life-saving surgery after a doctor discovered she had advanced thyroid cancer during a visa medical check. Samira Basnet, 36, moved to New Zealand two years ago to study for her Master’s degree in Management Studies at NMIT. During a medical check-up for her post-study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18572,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570\/revisions\/18572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}