Update Oct 9, 2009

The monsoon rains just keep coming and coming and coming. They normally have tapered off by now. Since the rains keep the rivers flowing and the hydroelectric power running, there is a useful side to it. However, they are also saying that continuing rains will damage the rice that is ready for harvest – knocking the ripened grains to the ground. Food prices have already shot up from general shortages. Their reduced yield of crops from the late start of the rains this year. This is the season when many are trying to grow enough to sustain their family for the rest of the year.

 

The temperatures are also beginning to fall. I wore a sweater today for the first time this season (cardigan for non-Americans J).

 

With the weather report finished, what has the hospital been up to? Well, the Dashain holiday has officially finished. Tihar happens next weekend and part of the following week. During that festival one day is spent worshipping each of the following: crow, dogs, bull, and then sisters worship their brothers.  Dogs get a tika (red forehead dot) and sometimes a garland on their day. Have I ever told you about the street dog population here? J

 

Similar to the Christmas season in other countries, longer term patients here (who are able) request to go home for the holidays and then return afterwards. Others will delay seeking treatment until after the holidays are over.

 

The other day riding to town in a the hospital jeep, an ambulance with sirens blaring overtook us. One of the staff told me about the patient inside that ambulance that had arrived at Anandaban just minutes before we had left the hospital. The man’s leg had been struck by lightning 3 days before deep in the steep hills south of Anandaban. For about 200,000 people spread out for many hours drive in those hills, we are the nearest hospital. And many of those people live many hours walk from the nearest road. It had taken that man 3 days to get to Anandaban. He probably had to get someone to carry him partway until they could find a road and then some form of transport. By the time he reached us, the leg was infected. Although we have a general ward and an emergency room, this case was too critical and had to be referred to a hospital in Kathmandu... which meant that he had to ride another hour over rough roads. As we sat in the traffic jam listening to the wailing siren stalled ahead of us, one of the staff mentioned that maybe after 3 days the nerves were damaged so badly that maybe he would not be in serious pain anymore at this point...maybe...   

 

Other current events: A church group from the UK has come to help out for a week. Dr. Hugh Cross (Leprosy Mission Country Rep for Nepal) and his wife Diana are here in Nepal for a month. They will be working with various groups, leprosy organizations across Nepal, visiting Lalgadh Hospital and having meetings with the staff here. The first free medical camp is tentatively scheduled for later this month. Next month there is a UK specialist hand surgeon coming to have a surgical camp here and at Lalgadh. The camps are especially good. We line up patients from across Nepal in need of specialized reconstructive surgery as well as interested nepali doctors that need to learn the specialized techniques. Then the surgeons team up for all day surgical marathons! It is amazing to watch people “operate” in their gifting with joy and excitement. They pray before each one. The doctors wear themselves out giving and the patients...it is such a blessing to even see them receive it. It can make such a tremendous difference in their life to have a hand somewhat functional again and not be so obviously disabled in a stigmatized culture. Also, a Japanese surgical nurse who “happened” to visit last year alongside the UK specialist team has decided to come again to help out.  More news later...

 

The surgery pic is from a hand camp last year around this time. Dr. Indra and Dr. Donald (guest UK hand specialist) work on a boy’s hand. In the other photo, a few weeks later, I was able to get a picture of some of the surgery camp patients around the hospital (they have to stay for a couple of months for recovery and specialized physical therapy). One boy is holding his cast out of view while one of the others is trying very hard to resist smiling at me! Please pray for the patients here at the hospital. Many come from far or remote places. Due to the difficulties of life here, sometimes families cannot spare someone to be with a child patient during a long hospital stay.  

    

 

  

 

 

.