REPORT FROM PYUTHAN
March 31, 2014
Mike Smith’s report from Pyuthan just in …
We are on day 7 with 3 more full days to go. Still seeing at least 150 out patients a day and over 20 ops every day. I operated on an 8 year old girl yesterday with really bad infection throughout her mastoid bone and we have done lots of hearing reconstruction operations. The weather is getting really hot now, and we have to have fans on while we work.
The village is set in a wide valley, we are surrounded by fields of winter wheat with high hills behind, very beautiful. Last night the sky was absolutely crystal clear and we could make out lots of constellations and even saw Mars and Jupiter (thank goodness for i-phone apps!). It is just getting dark again now outside, it goes dark very quickly, and a large crowd of patients, at least 100 are sitting in a neat line across the concrete forecourt of the hospital.
They are planning to stay there all night in order to get a ticket to be seen tomorrow, many have walked 2 days from an area called Rolpa (see map). The school exams have just finished so we think many patients waited before coming.
We have almost run out of hearing aid batteries and the aids themselves are getting low. There have been several emotional moments when patients suddenly heard with their new aids. We badly need a source of freely donated or low cost hearing aids and especially batteries. We are also nearly fully booked for surgery, but will try our best to fit in any badly affected patients.
The 3 medical students from Birmingham, Matthias, Mica and Nicola, all doing research projects about ear problems in Nepal, came on the ear camp and have been a big help syringing ears and assisting at surgery. They left early today as they have to get back to the UK, so we are managing to cope so far, but missing them.
I am sitting in theatre as the last 3 ops go on, we should finish by about 8.30 tonight, then a walk through the unpaved bazaar streets to our hotels and a re-warmed vegetarian curry dinner!
Download the INF report here: INF Pyuthan Ear Camp Report – 2014
