Grief has consumed Seti Maya Lama these last eight months.
The 71-year-old has been lost in it.
Her family say she has walked the blue-walled family home in Makwanpur, a remote hillside village in Nepal, carrying a burden of “immense emotional stress”.
Her boy, Bikram, died half a world away, in a sleeping bag behind some bushes in Hyde Park, Sydney.
The 32-year-old former international student died homeless in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, on the doorstep of its busiest central business district, then lay dead for days without being noticed. When he was eventually discovered near the St James station tunnel during December’s heatwave, his body was badly decomposed.
In April a Guardian Australia investigation revealed the story of Bikram’s shocking end and highlighted systemic failures that trap non-residents like him in homelessness.
His story prompted an outpouring of support and calls for change. The horrific circumstances of his death unified federal and state ministers, dozens of local councils, fellow rough sleepers and frontline homelessness workers, including St Vincent’s hospital Sydney’s Homeless Health Service.
Seti Maya has had neither answers nor closure in the months since. Significant delays in the coronial process have meant her son’s body could not be repatriated home to Nepal, denying his family the ability to perform last rites.
“I just want to see my son’s face one last time,” Seti Maya tells the Guardian. “I only wish they could bring him home as soon as possible. If I can see him one last time, my heart will finally find some peace.”
In coming days, her wish may finally be granted. This month the coroner released Bikram Lama’s body. It is now with Euro Funeral Services, a Sydney funeral company which is preparing Bikram for the long flight home. Euro Funeral Services confirmed that the body will be ready to be placed on a plane in coming days.
Bikram’s sister-in-law, Usha Lama, say the delays have been hard for the family to bear.
“It feels unbelievable that it has taken so many months to bring him home,” she says. “All the official procedures have been extremely slow. We have reached a point where we feel relieved and even happy simply because we have been told that his body would finally coming home.
“Instead of welcoming him back alive after going abroad to earn a living, we are forced to welcome his body. That is the painful reality.”
The delays have not been explained. The coroner was initially held up by a DNA procedure needed to verify Bikram’s identity, which required his mother to travel from her village to the capital, Kathmandu, to provide a sample.
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But that process was completed in early June, the family say. The coroner says police are still compiling their brief of evidence. The coroner is yet to make a determination on whether an inquest will be held, something homelessness experts are calling for.
Delays in the coronial system have been a problem in New South Wales, prompting concerns that lessons from deaths are not being learned in time to prevent others.
The former deputy state coroner Hugh Dillon says the system suffers from multiple flaws that limit its efficiency. It lacks an overall management structure, despite being a multidisciplinary complex taking in medicine, police investigations, and legal and social work. The NSW police force also lacks a dedicated unit to assign coronial investigations to.
“The police set their own timetables and priorities for investigations,” Dillon says. “The system would work better – as it used to up to about 2009 – if there were police investigators dedicated to coronial investigations.”
He says the delayed handling of the Lama case is “yet another example of why we need a modernised coronial system”.
“As I have said numerous times in many submissions and letters to government since 2014, I believe we need a better-resourced specialist court. But that would not solve all the problems. We also need a management structure that coordinates and manages the operations of this multidisciplinary system.”
Usha Lama says the family has been coordinating with Nepali community organisations and students in Australia to help bring Bikram home.
“The family’s financial condition is extremely poor,” she says. “Without financial assistance, it would be even more difficult to repatriate his body.”
Nepal’s government has also been helping the family.
A foreign ministry spokesperson, Lok Bahadur Poudel Chhetri, said: “The Government of Nepal has been treating such incidents with the utmost seriousness, and efforts are underway through the Nepali embassy and the relevant authorities to repatriate the body of Bikram Lama.”
