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| _BP |
Posted
on 28-Dec-01 01:14 PM
This was a very useful link:
http://www.himalayan-healthcare.org/
I have several friends in Orthopaedic Surgery who love the outdoors and have even visited Nepal before. They are serious about forming a group to perform outreach orthopaedic care in Nepal. We are organizing a pilot study to explore the feasibility of an annual visit by a team of physicians and nurses. As most of us are about to finish our training / subspecialization, such an event would most likely begin a year or two from now. A rudimentary hospital setting with basic equipment and routine follow-up care would be ideal. If not available, we are willing to help establish one. The above resource sounds very helpful. Please post any other links and recommendations if you have some. We are aware of other orthopaedic groups who have been to Nepal previously, although we are not aware of the consistency of such programs. The subspecialty that most lends to this type of program would be pediatric orthopaedic surgery. But we also have doctors subspecializing in spine, hand, foot, joints, and trauma.
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| rai |
Posted
on 11-Feb-02 04:01 PM
It was a very good idea about organising the othopaedic health camps in Nepal . I just want to hail your idea and efforts.
But
Do you really think it is going to help in any way? Do you really believe orthopaedic problems can be best tackled in the camps.. As far as i know there are lots of Health camps going on all through the year but the only successful and helpful were those of Cataract Camps ,Family planning camps both easy to screen and shor procedure with out much follow ups and Plastic surgery mainly correction of cleft lip and palate.
What we really need in Nepal to better in the Orthopaedic care is a concept of Sustainable Charity or Development. Going there and doing few surgeries in haste is of no use in terms of cost benifit . So if you have resources I would sincerely suggest you to renovate some districts hospitals and ensure manpower to be there for follow up. It doesnot have to be a doctors does, it? In some district of Nepal the primary care and maternal care improved markedly just by training some local women volunteers who are dedicated . There is a trail going on training same kind of man power to treat the acute respiratory tract infection in Childrens, I mean to say that the improvement and developments are slow process and not necessarily requiring SUBSPECIALISTS. but dedications
By the way Correct me if I am wrong but i dont think there are many orthopaedic surgeries that can be done in Camps except few corrections of deformities . Orthopaedic surgeries requires sophisticated equipments which will be very difficult to take to camps and fields. What about Histopathology? what about the prosthesis Nails and Pins? Ortho surgeries are those surgeries requring prolonged peroid of follow ups and recovery peroid.
So sorry for a negative comments but If the idea is to get some outdoor trekking for outdoor loving people and at the same time "Lets see some patients as well " idea so it may look and sound good to organise a camp . but being realistic it will just be a waste of a very costly manpower and resources.
Finally , there are lots of foriegn groups who come to Nepal to organise heath camps , All of them wanted to help Nepal and have a very good intention but the lack of cordination is making them useless . for example the most of the health camps are organised in the areas around Kathmandu and Pokhara. so there is no point of orgainising the Cataract camp six months after the last camp had operated almost all the operable cataracts. So If you can ,it will be great help and immense importance to cordinate these efforts of well wishers
Would love to hear your comments too. and once again sorry for presenting a pessimistic thought.
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| _BP |
Posted
on 11-Feb-02 05:17 PM
Mr/Ms Rai:
Actually, the reason we are interested in doing this in Nepal is because we have been doing this in several different countries and continents already. In fact, there are several hospital organizations, not just physicians, who organize these outreach clinics. We have outreach clinics in Mexico, Columbia, Southeast Asia, etc. Orthopaedic surgery in particular lends itself very well to such clinics. Deformity correction in children is the majority of the procedures performed. These children do very well, but you are right, there needs to be a follow-up basis for post-operative care etc. There needs to be a basic clinic or hospital setting for this project to work.
These outreach clinics are typically held in a city that is relatively accessbile from nearby rural areas. My colleagues and I think Nepal should be a very good candidate for these clinics as well, because we have cities outside of the capital that have hospitals and can provide basic care after surgeries. In other words, the patients will not be abandoned after their surgeries. We will be using the help of other health care workers (such as public health specialists, social workers, nurses, etc). There are already some organizations that go to Nepal for clinics in other specialties. I need to see if we can add Orthopaedic surgery to these camps.
Orthopaedic equipment, braces, prosthesis, etc can be collected from Hospitals here that can donate them, new or after being used but still usable. We can make these arrangements, and in fact I have been involved in this type of activity for our other outreach ventures.
Since I am still nearing the end of my training, I am interested in learning more about available resources. I at least know I have interested orthopaedic surgeons.
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| nepalikt |
Posted
on 11-Feb-02 07:24 PM
BP
have you checked out UMN? They have a pretty strong health department and have been involved over the decaded in several hospitals around the country, including several hospitals like Patan and Ampipal. http://www.umn.org.np/health_main.htm
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