Lifesaving healthcare for remote farming villages

September 2013 marked the launch of our collaboration with Global Giving. Neophytes to fundraising, all we had to offer was our desire to support a small hospital in the Kavre District of Nepal. The Rajbash Community Hospital opened in 2010 to provide much needed basic medical care to some of the poorest people in this remote area. We had visited the hospital twice while trekking in Nepal and were truly inspired by their mission. Inspite of our ignorance and with amazing coaching by the Global Giving staff we managed to organize our first, very successful fundraising drive. Many have followed since, and the Rajbash community hospital with its all Nepali staff is not only still standing, it is thriving and an important part of the larger Rajbash/Kavre community. 

As I think back over the last three years I remember the many small and large challenges that we have weathered: 

• monsoon landslides that regularly took out the road; 
• the unreliable electric grid breaking down in the midst of surgeries; 
• government promises for our birthing center certification delayed; 
• the loss of valuable employees, lured away to better paying jobs, to name just a few.
• The biggest challenge, without a doubt, was the incredible devastation wreaked by the series of powerful earthquakes that hit Nepal in April 2015. Damage to the upper floor of the hospital made us transfer patient services to a hastily rigged outdoor space covered with tarps. When the monsoon came we moved into the small pharmacy building and labored for months in these cramped conditions while the hospital yard became a command center for relief activities in the hard hit area.

However, the upper floor of the hospital has now been earthquake proofed and repaired, and operations are back inside where they belong.  There has been much else to celebrate:

• the donor who generously provided the funds to initially complete the interior of the hospital’s second story; 
• the 2012 donation by TATA India of a fully equipped, back country enabled ambulance; 
• the building of independent staff quarters to house doctors, nurses and other personnel; 
• installing a new solar system that makes us independent of the electrical grid (which, incidentally, was seriously damaged by a major landslide that took out a portion of the dam providing hydropower to the region); 
• the generous UK donor who gifted a new Ultra Sound machine and a warming bed for our neonatal unit
• the long awaited government certification as a regional birthing center and, finally,
• we celebrate and thank the many volunteers who have given their talents and their time in support of this important project.

All these achievements would not have been possible without DCWC's expert management, Global Giving’s guidance and the staunch support of you, our kindhearted donors. Through Global Giving your donations go directly to our project. Your generosity allows us

• to continue providing basic medical services to large numbers of subsistence farming families in remote Nepal; 
• to increase our reach to even more remote areas through our free Health Camps; 
• to reach more expectant moms through our outreach programs, improve their perinatal care, and thus lower the incidence of maternal and child mortality for families in remote areas.

We are grateful to you for standing with us in this ambitious undertaking and hope you will  continue to lend your support in the future. 

PS. For a more detailed history of this project please read our reports going back to Dec. 2013

Links:

• DCWC website with info on upcoming treks