Just days after the occurrence of first massive earthquake that teared Nepal into pieces, another Major earthquake occurred in Nepal on 12th of May with a magnitude of 7.3 rector scale. And, as if Dolakha already had less problems nature again played a very unfair game, the epicenter of the second quake being Dolakha. Dolakha falls in the central development region of Nepal. Dolakha is always in news for the epidemic breakdown of simple communicable diseases, poverty, unemployment and lack of health services and facilities. It is undoubtedly one of the most least developed district of Nepal.
Life in Dolakha afterwards the earthquake has become very difficult and hard. Dolakha has suffered a lot of damages in terms of both casualty and damages to the property. After two major earthquakes and one aftershock of 6.7 rector scale many people became homeless. Even though large quantities of relief materials are being sent from the capital and many agencies, people have been dropping them off only to the easily reachable southern part. However, due to the inaccessibility to the northern part agencies hesitate to go there and conduct any health camps or relief works. People there aren’t even getting the simple health services. After understanding the need of health services in the remote villages of Dolakha, a medical team of doctors and nurses from MHN under the leadership of Dr.Aban Gautam President of Mountain Heart Nepal decided to head towards Hawa-9 for two days long free health camp. Our medical team was also joined by a Canadian doctor Dr Janine Pintar. It was a humbling experience to see how committed she was to help Nepal.
Hawa is a small village in the northern part of Dolakha. It is about 9 hours away from the Capital city Kathmandu. Conducting this health camp wasn’t easy at all. Any medical personnel weren’t in a state of going to such a remote place for such a long time. We don’t blame them though as it is never safe to go to such a remote place at the time of monsoon and the road definitely being not safe. Landslides and any other disaster could occur at any moment. But as they say where there is will there is way, thanks to Dr Gautam’s hard efforts and strong will to help the needy people, he was successful in forming committed medical team.
Really, god helps those who help themselves. On reaching the place doctors were ravened to see such a piteous state of health services and facilities there. People there didn’t have any access to health services. Dr Aban Gautam recalls talking to Mr. Ram Prasad a local resident of Hawa on how he told him that he and all his villagers had never seen a doctor in their entire life. Dr. Gautam describes this experience as a life changing one and recalls on how people got scared by seeing Stethoscope and Sphygmomanometer. This health camp being the first one ever held in Hawa went out to be a huge success. Children’s from age group of 5 months to old man/woman of age 105 years attended our Camp. Many people from other villages also attended our camp and told that they had to cover a long distance and walk for almost 3 to 4 hours to reach our Camp. Our medical team reported simplest of cases to the most complicated ones. Our doctors treated cases of gastroenteritis, skin infection, conjunctivitis and reported cases of acute liver failure and cases of hay fever to intestinal tuberculosis. There were even surgical cases like inguinal hernia, cases of cataract, mass per abdomen, and uterovaginal prolapse among many others.
A case of homicide was also reported where a man’s head was almost chopped of by his sister in law with Axe. Our doctors resuscitated him; his BP was down to 90/60. Our team cleaned the wounds for almost an hour and gave him oral fluids and antibiotics. Although he could bearly drink or swallow the medications, we manged to resusciate despite lack of i.v medications and sufficient i.v fluids. Locals told us how they had tried to call the ambulance from 2 am in the morning but there was no sign of it till 3 pm in the evening. We stabilized the condition of the man for many hours until a vehicle finally came from the district headquarter Charikot.
Our two day camp ended by successfully treating about 750 patients. In the first day we treated about 300 patients and in the second day we treated another 350 people. Some blankets, clothes for 300 women were also distributed to the needy villagers.
We would sincerely like to thank all our donors, our organizers and our medical team. Special thanks to Dr Gautam for all the planning’s and promotions. Still a lot more has to be done. We came from Dolakha with a promise to return back with more help. The smiles we could bring in people’s faces have truly inspired us to work hard. Let’s keep the good work going.