1,215 PATIENTS AND COUNTING …
November 26, 2012
Burtibang, Western Region, Nepal, 26 November 2012
We are at the end of our 7th day of the ear camp in a village 9 hours by Land Rover from the nearest town – a very, very bumpy off-road track all the way.
We are seeing about 200 outpatients per day; 1,215 patients so far. Of these 128 have had surgery. Twenty-seven booked for tomorrow are mostly major ear ops such as mastoidectomy and ear drum repairs. So far about 490 audiograms and about 140 hearing aids fitted. We are four surgeons, two audiologists and three anaesthetists; all ops except one under local with sedation. Two young children had nasty ear abscesses to operate.
The day after tomorrow we have one more day in the village, we will see all our post op patients and do the dressings. By chance the Nepali Prime Minister comes here by helicopter that day to open a school, so we are hoping to get a visit!
I just finished a tough op, there are still two running on other op tables so we should finish by 9 pm tonight. We are working in a building site, it is a hospital building but bare concrete with no windows or flooring. Very cold!
