Last month we finally made it back to Baruwa in Sindupalchowk to fulfil our promise of running a further camp. We last visited Baruwa in 2018 for an eye camp and this time around we also brought a team of dentists with us.
We were extremely lucky with the weather as up until the day before we left, Nepal has been experiencing heavy pre-monsoon rains, which if they had continued, would’ve made the road, (read steep rocky, muddy track), very slippery and possibly impassable. Although extremely hot for the long journey, heat over rain was definitely the preferred option.
As usual the journey took much longer than anticipated and we finally arrived in the dark around 8pm in time for daal bhat and bed as we had an early start the next morning.
We were up with the cockerels, fed and watered and at the health post by 07:30 so we could set up and make a start on seeing patients, as the queue was already getting busy.
We had a tremendous turnout throughout the day with 406 patients registering to be seen. Interestingly although the eye doctors were pretty busy, it was our dentist team who barely had time to breathe as the seemingly never-ending queue snaked outside their room. As a team of three newly qualified dentists from Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel they did an amazing job seeing a total of 117 people of all ages; extracting teeth from 60 patients, the most being 5 from one mouth. Did scaling and polishing for 8; restorations for 15 and silver diamine fluoride application for 12 children. They also referred 12 patients for root canal treatment, which unfortunately they were not able to perform as it requires more than one visit.
Our team of eye doctors also did sterling work seeing 329 patients throughout the day. They issued 165 pairs of reading glasses and recommended 14 patients for cataract surgery. On top of this they diagnosed one case of Phthisis bulbi (wasting cornea) and one of amblyopia or lazy eye.
For our cataract patients we were super lucky to be able to make use of a free surgery camp being run by Phulahari Gompa in Kopan and the Tilganga Institute of Opthamology. Nine of the 14 patients identified for surgery travelled to Kathmandu straight after the camp to have their surgery, supported by Gyalzen Lama, a volunteer from Baruwa. Being able to help restore the gift of sight is perhaps the singularly most satisfying element of camps such as these, and we very much hope that all of our brave cataract patients enjoy their new lease of vision and life.
A Himalayan thank you to everyone who helped make this camp the success it was. Our amazing donors One World One Heart Foundation, without whom we wouldn’t be able to bring such invaluable health care to rural Nepali communities. Our eye doctors from Teaching Hospital, Kathmandu, Drs Sanjeeb, Ravi and Ramesh. Our dentists, Drs Ashok, Bishal and Sandesh from Kathmandu University, Dulkihel, along with the support from the University’s Community & Public Health Dentistry department. Never before have we had such a fancy and well kitted out dental room! The Baruwa heal post staff and community volunteers and of course, our own HQF team Hari, Elisha and Payas.