By supporting Doctors For Nepal, you be helping to train highly dedicated young people to become doctors, and through them
provide medical care to communities with massive health care problems.
Kalikot - where our first student (Lalit) lives - has huge chronic
health issues, many stemming from the very low standards of living in the area. Almost all families struggle to provide basic
food and shelter, and the concept of hygiene is almost non-existent. There are therefore many many cases of diarrhoea and
respiratory tract infections, leading to high levels of malnutrition in children. Injuries from falls are common due to the
steep mountainous terrain, and the distances then required to travel to get medical care means that often these never get
treated - resulting in loss of limbs, if not life.
Infection rates are high, but access to basic life-saving antibiotics is difficult, with 20% of patients walking for 3 days
over mountains to access health care. Most health care provided is expensive, and not even provided by qualified medical staff.
Birth rates are high, with women commonly having ten children -
but with these high birth rates are shocking mortality rates; the life-long risk of mothers dying due to pregnancy in Nepal
being 1 in 50, resulting in large numbers of orphaned children. Many of these deaths could be prevented with access to basic
medical care such as antibiotics and blood transfusions.
By sponsoring the training of carefully selected Nepalese students,
we shall provide well trained, dedicated doctors who will be able to improve the longterm outlook for many of the patients
in rural areas, who would otherwise remain bereft of basic health care provision that we all take for granted.
|
| Young Nepalese patient |
