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| Doctors for Nepal goes down the Karnali Rivers, look to the background, that's where we are going....Manma |
On day 2 to Manma, after a long walk through paddy fields and along beautiful beaches of white sand bordering the Karnali river, we stopped for lunch in a little roadside town. Instantly, a crowd of about 20 locals gathered to watch us eat. This was becoming a regular occurrence as we trekked deeper into the dusty hills, where white tourists and aid workers rarely venture.
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| Crossing the Karnali River where Lalit had promised us a "black road" |
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| The beauties of the Karnali valley, nothing in comparison to what we were about to see around Manma according to Kate | | | |
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| Our second hotel after leaving Surket, a surprisingly cosy and welcoming place. |
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When Kate worked for MSF in Kalikot during the civil war, she was always flown in and out by helicopter, only authorised to leave the medical compound once a week on a trip up to the local town.
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| Waiting for our dahl bat as Lalit and Kate examine their patient |
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| Dahl bat in all it's glory |
As we tucked into our dahl bat, the local and nearly only means of sustenance, consisting of rice, bean or lentil soup, a small veg curry and a touch of pickle, word quickly got around that there was a doctor (or “daktar” in Nepali) in the midst and Kate and Lalit were urgently called to see a patient who had just been carried off a bus.
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| Doctors for Nepal, the only "dakars" in the village |
Kate and Lalit’s diagnosis revealed that he had a severely fractured elbow and needed to get to a hospital asap. However, ASAP is not really an option in Nepal. Unfortunately for our patients, his only option was to get on a local bus, travel for 8hrs over the rocky track along the cliffs to get to Nepalgunj hospital.
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| Bhumi, one of our amazing porters with his European Commission cap |
Interminable bus rides acting as ambulances were starting to become a recurrent theme the more we progressed into rural Kalikot. Our unlucky patient is just another example of the additional unnecessary trauma and insane pain that the lack of local medical facilities incurs.
I really do wonder how much people should have to suffer to get to a hospital.
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