2017 - 2018 TRIP

In 2018, 2 teams in Project Aasha visited Bung and Gorkha in Nepal

BUNG

The team that embarked on this trip consisted of Prof Tham, Dr Kumaran, Dr Gayathri, 7 LKC medicine students and 2 SIT physiotherapy students.

GORKHA

From 9 to 13 March 2018, a team comprising of medical students and nursing students visited Gorkha District. The team was led by Dr Rupesh Agrawal, a Consultant Ophthalmologist at National Health Group Eye Institute (Singapore), and was accompanied by Mr Kothubutheen Mohamed Farook, a Principal Optometrist with the Singapore National Eye Centre, Dr Chan Siew Luen, a member of the International Service wing of the Rotary Club of Singapore, and Dr Hnin Hnin Oo, a Medical Officer with the Ministry of Health Holdings.

Over the course of the trip, the team conducted a surgical eye camp, a first aid teaching session, and also made a recce trip to Amppipal Hospital to explore possible avenues of collaboration.

BUNG

VILLAGE IN BUNG

We focused heavily on a health camp that was conducted over 2 days in Bung, a village located in the Solukhumbu district of Nepal.

ENTERANCE TO VILLAGE SOTANG

To arrive at the destination, we took a 16 hours-long jeep ride from Kathmandu and hiked for 2 days, stopping for a night at a village called Sotang.

HEALTH POST IN BUNG

Bung’s healthcare provision is spearheaded by two clinics - the Edmund Hillary Clinic and a government health post. The former is limited in space and only provides basic health services to the villagers, and is unable to deal with medical emergencies. The health post in Bung is well-developed, but is less frequented due to a lack of accessibility. It is built on top of a steep hill, requiring a 30 minutes hike, which poses as a huge hurdle for the sick. The nearest hospital requires 4 days of travel.

GORKHA

SURGICAL CATARACT CAMP

The doctors conducted a surgical cataract camp at Gorkha District Centre in Gorkha, Nepal. The camp was held at Lion’s Eye Centre. In partnership with Himalayan Eye Hospital (HEH) and the Lion’s Club, we conducted 53 successful cataract surgeries over the course of two days.
A complete fundus examination was performed for each patient before they were sent for surgery – a good practice we have introduced since our last surgical eye camp in December 2016. The fundus examination rules out any underlying retinal pathologies that may contribute to a loss in visual acuity, in addition to the cataracts observed, so that unnecessary cataract surgeries that do not restore the patient’s vision can be avoided.

POST OPERATION SCREENINGS

On the morning after the operations, post-operation screenings were performed for each patient. We are glad to report no post-operation complications, achieving an operation success rate of 100%.

POST - TRIP REVIEW

Moving forward, we hope to improve operating theatre hygiene and safety standards through the provision of equipment as well as the integration of the best practices from Singapore into existing local surgical protocols. We also hope to establish screening protocols for selecting patients indicated for surgery. Recognising the limitations of local working set-ups, input from local staff will be sought based on on-the-ground experience with the newly introduced protocols.

In 2018, 2 teams in Project Aasha visited Bung and Gorkha in Nepal

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BUNG

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GORKHA

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