By Sarah Galvin | Director PHASE Worldwide
The community of Maila village, one of the most remote in the world, lacks basic provision to healthcare and transportation. Located in the mountainous Humla district and with no health post within a 60km radius, the journey to access healthcare would take days were it not for PHASE’s healthcare project in this isolated community. PHASE’s work provides qualified health workers and health provisions, such as medicines and equipment, as well as essential health education. (More information on PHASE’s essential healthcare work)
The healthcare workers trained by PHASE face an extraordinary variety of health problems, from leprosy and typhoid to malnutrition. The lack of any other medical support in Maila means that the healthcare professionals have to be ready to face any medical issue, be it worms or burns. One particularly demanding case was that of a Maila villager who unknowingly ate part of a poisonous plant. The symptoms of the poisoning case were particularly alarming; inability to taste; extremely low blood pressure; vision problems; dizziness and difficulty breathing.
Healthcare professionals of the Maila village, thankfully having recently received training from PHASE on the treatment of poisoning, were able to use their knowledge to treat the dangerously ill patient. First, a charcoal powder mixture was given to reduce any corrosive effect of the unknown poison. The staff observed that the patient’s heartbeat had become dangerously slow. They administered fluids intravenously and repeated this until the heart beat returned to a normal rate.
Due to the knowledge and proximity of the healthcare professionals, the patient was returned to full health and was discharged from the hospital at 4pm the next day. Had PHASE’s project not been implemented in the area, lack of transportation and health provisions would mean that the villager would not have even arrived at a local health post by this time. Thankfully, the training given to in Maila by PHASE enabled healthcare professionals to administer life-saving healthcare in such a unique case of poisoning. To support this project further go to https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/himalayan-healthcare-save-lives-in-nepal/
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