Day 2 of the Health Camp
After a wonderful breakfast of boiled eggs and Jalebi, which is a fantastic Nepali style donut that is dipped in liquid sugar, we headed back down the bumpy road to Rupakot. My little friends, Ashmita and Kripa came to see us because they did not have school today. I gave Ashmita the pen-pal letter from my niece and she was very happy. We showed the kids our Holiday card and business cards and they were so pleased to hold pictures of their own faces.
The Health Camp started at around 9:30 am and soon there was a long line of patients waiting outside the gate. A young man carried his grandfather on his back with the help of a blanket sling that went over his head. While the old man was very light, it only meant that he was severely malnourished. He was a heavy smoker, in Congestive Heart Failure and had stopped taking his medications. Rene and Dr. Devi Neupane, the Cardiologist from Kathmandu who came to volunteer at the camp, examined and counseled him about continuing to take the prescribed medications.
One especially sad patient was a 3-year-old child who was brought to the health post by his mother to see if there was any medication that would help him. The boy was blind, deaf and mute and was developing poorly. At 8 months of age the child developed a case of meningitis and had a high fever for 4 days before being brought to the hospital in Pokhara for treatment. Since that time the child has not been able to do anything other than open his eyes and stand up with help. He had very weak muscle tone, was poorly nourished and small for his age. We suggested that the mother take him to the Kanti Children’s Hospital in Kathmandu for evaluation and she told us that she could not afford to go there. We offered to pay for transportation and Elsie told her about the Social Action Volunteers Nepal Shelter that is available to caregivers who need a place to stay while their child is being treated at the hospital. While explaining the benefits of the shelter, Elsie took the opportunity to talk to the mothers about bringing their children to a hospital as soon as they developed a fever and to try to get the fever down by taking off all of the blankets that they cover their children with. In Nepal the practice of covering babies and young children with as much clothing as possible is very common. One time, we saw a young Tibetan mother who had her child dressed like he was going out in a snowstorm in Canada while we were wearing short-sleeved shirts.
Towards the end of the day the local school children came in for general check-ups and they were all given de-worming medications and vitamins. They were all so happy to have the opportunity to be seen by a doctor and make sure that they are OK.
At the end of the camp we tallied up the forms and counted the number of patients, 967, who we had seen in 2 days. In Nepal the thought of having a patient chart is unheard of. When a patient comes in to see the doctor, they are given a prescription or report of the visit to take home. The patients keep all of these papers at home and are responsible for bringing them in the next time that they see a doctor. Health care in Nepal is evolving, but so many people do not utilize the resources that are available. The reasons for this are vast but the majority of them consist of difficulties of accessibility, finances or age-old beliefs that are in opposition to modern health care. In planning the health camp we were not able to find out much information about what type of patients and diseases are seen at Nepali health camps so we brought a form that each doctor filled out to help us compile a database for the village of Rupakot.
After cleaning up the health post it was time for the thank-you ceremony. It seems like every event in the Nepali countryside involves a ceremony of some type. As Rene and the NGO leaders passed out the certificates, Kathy learned how to offer the tika blessing to the villagers who volunteered at the camp. This was such an honor and great opportunity to individually thank each of the wonderful people who we have grown to know and love over the past 4 years of visiting Rupakot.
All of the doctors were laughing and cheering on our bus ride back to Sundar Bazaar. As I was getting off the bus, Elsie looked at me and said, “I don’t know about you, but I am going to have a hot shower now!” Clearly that was an inside joke, because although we did have running water in our small lodge, the water was freezing cold. We sat outside at the lodge’s café and had some snacks of Lassi (a yogurt type of drink) and fried noodles before the young doctors were on their way back to Pokhara. We loved getting to know them all and after spending 2 days listening to their laughter, we knew that we would miss them that evening.