Hello Nepal!

Bajra Sarahi Clinic: The newly-built green-roofed building in the centre will be both office and home for the next seven weeks

Firstly, I would like to say an enormous thank you to my patients, friends, and family for their overwhelming support and enthusiasm in my upcoming adventures. As I want to stay in touch with you all but communication options will be limited, starting a blog-newsletter seems to be a good way to share a little bit of the next few months. All comments and emails are welcome to keep the conversation going!

Today I leave for the rural district of Makwanpur, Nepal, as part of a small team working in clinics served by the Acupuncture Relief Project. We will each be seeing between 16-25 patients daily, free of charge over the next seven weeks; there is already a waitlist of 600 people signed up for treatment.

While well known for the beauty of the landscape and it’s people, Nepal remains one of the poorest countries in the world. The recent devastating earthquakes and political unrest have only exacerbated the problems. This clinic is the main source of medical care, health education, and diagnostic assessment in an area where many of the patients have never seen a doctor. Importantly, Acupuncture Relief Project also provides support to the community through training and employment of interpreters, plus skill sharing and helping to educate a new generation of Nepali healthcare workers. Established in 2008 and committed to working in the area long term to provide a sustainable new model of health care, Acupuncture Relief Project provided nearly 10,000 patient treatments last year alone.  There is the potential to reach so many more by following their vision and I feel very fortunate to be able to participate in this fantastic project.

If you would like to know more about the charity, please click here.  If you are interested, there are still a couple more days to donate; the majority of the funds raised go towards clinic costs, medications, and supplies, with the remainder covering flights and basic subsistence costs during the clinic rotation (we’re talking cold showers rather than feather duvets here).  A little can go a long way, for example:

$20 pays for 10 days of an interpreter
$50 will cover the cost of clinic supplies of one practitioner for a week
$100 will pay for all our clinic expenses for one day – that could mean treatment for 120 people.

Thank you all again for your support and all the contributions you have made, in so many different ways, that have enabled me to do this.