Raising funds for medical facilities for the homeless

We are looking to raise medical funds to improve the Community health clinic in Jadibuti for Homeless People. If you are able to help by volunteering or fundraising, please get in touch. 

Background to medical care in Nepal:

Nepal is located between China and India. Therefore, its mountains, lack of infrastructure, and land-locked status pose extreme barriers to development. Its per capita income is just USD $218 and the vast majority of people are subsistence farmers. Nepal’s maternal mortality ratio (MMR) of 539/100,000 births ranks among the highest in the world. In comparison, Sri Lanka’s MMR is 94, while the United States’ is just 8. Life expectancy is 55 years. Diseases of pregnant women, children, infections, and malnutrition account for two-thirds of Nepal’s illnesses.

There is a gaping disparity in the quality of healthcare access offered in urban and rural areas. While Kathmandu has 98 doctors for every 100,000 people, rural Nepal averages just 2.5 per 100,000. Further, in many of its 75 districts, there is no doctor. Many approved government posts of all levels of healthcare workers are unfilled. For example, for the whole of Nepal, 13% of all baby deliveries are conducted by trained personnel. For the poorest fifth of the population (mainly rural) the number is just 3%.

Volunteer Society Nepal (VSN) has been focusing its health programs to meet a small number of those in need in urban and rural areas of Nepal. With this program, hundreds of local people have already benefited. This program benefits the Nepali people and volunteers. Underprivileged citizens receive health services from health experts, overseas medical professionals, and medical students. On the other hand, volunteers receive the opportunity to work side-by-side foreigners and Nepali health professionals in a Third World setting. Overseas volunteers will work alongside their Nepali counterparts to organize overall health camps, examine patients, distribute medicine and consult with communities about sanitation and health care.

VSN Health Clinic in Jadibuti 

On the banks of the Manohara River near Jadibuti, there is a community of internally displaced Nepalese citizens. The Manohara Landless Community (MLC) consists of over 5,000 people (3,800 under the age of 18). These people come from a variety of circumstances. Some were driven from their homes due to Maoist rebels and associated violence. Others came because floods and landslides destroyed their villages, and more still are sharecroppers who have never owned their own property.

Despite the fact that they are squatting on public land, these people have built camps on this river bank and in the past 3 years have established their own community. The conditions here are the likes of which most people in the world cannot even imagine. The homes are makeshift sheds, some held together by discarded rice bags. Because it is on the bank of a river, they have no clean water or waste management system. Raw sewage runs down the middle of the street. Sadly, every day hundreds of children play in these filthy conditions, and the residents use the same river water for urinating, defecating, bathing, and sometimes, drinking.

Reaching out to the Community

Despite their hardships, the residents of this community have established their own government. Volunteer Society Nepal (VSN) contacted its leaders and elders about the needs of the community. Although Volunteer Society Nepal (VSN) does not have a regular donor-base for its projects and has always depended on volunteers fees, Volunteer Society Nepal (VSN) decided to establish a small health clinic for the community, including health awareness and income generation activities. Now, this community has a health clinic with an experienced medical worker, as well as one other staff member who provides treatment and medicines for a minimal fee. Overall sanitation will improve. However, the sad truth is that all of this hard work will be futile in the event of a major epidemic. The objectives of establishing health clinic are as follows:

• To provide quality medical care facilities for internally displaced people with either no cost or low cost
• We will provide quality medical care facilities to local disadvantaged women and children.
• Medical care facilities will be at a local level so that patients do not have to go far and expensive hospitals
• We aim to provide free health services for the orphanages
• Making a center for overseas medical doctors, nurses, paramedics and medical students where they can serve underprivileged women and children and learn about Nepali medications system.
• Organize health awareness programs on a regular basis.

What we need to develop the clinic:

Currently, this health clinic has one junior doctor with a small pharmacy, who provides general health checks for local people. This clinic provides medical care facilities to around 300 patients a month. As this clinic does not have sufficient medical equipment and human resources, local patients either get no treatment or have to go to private hospitals. This is extremely expensive.

Volunteer Society Nepal (VSN) has a plan to expand its services to local people with more equipment and qualified medical personnel. Firstly, if we have more equipment and human resources, we will be able to provide healthcare facilities up to 750 patients a month. We have three rooms. Two rooms have been used for patient examining and one has been used for pharmacy. To provide quality medical care facilities we would be needing following equipment and human resources:

• An X ray machine and Laboratory: It costs approximately $3,300
• Medicines: We need more medicines to improve the standard of our clinic
• Doctor and nurses: We have one junior doctor as a manager. As we receive more equipment, we will need more volunteers, more physicians and specialists.

If you are interested in helping raise funds for the health clinic, please contact VSN immediately. We will give you extra information, fundraising support and anything else you would require. Or, if you are looking to volunteer for a medical placement in Nepal, get in touch and we will discuss options for supporting the clinic