2017

Birthday Journey - Alex Berg Kristensen

Happy birthday to me..!

The 23. of July was my birthday, which I celebrated with Joakim and the host family. Joakim had a busy first week at the hospital, where we worked from Monday- Saturday, several of the days were 9-10 hour work days… So we decided that is was time for some time off.

Joakim and I decided to go for a walk. We spend the entire morning walking to the local hill temple. The temple is a well visited Hindu temple, and the walk there was beautiful. To get to the top we had to climb the 1800 steps in around 35 degrees. We started out great and quickly realised that is was going to be hot..! Afterwards we went for dinner in the city and walked home to relax the rest of the day. After dinner, the family called us into the living room because there was an emergency! It turns out they had bought a birthday cake for me  After finishing the cake I noticed that all the Nepali had left some of the icings on their plate. Apparently, it is a Nepali tradition to cover the birthday child in the remainings of the cake… One of the girls asked me where I wanted to have the 3 different colours she had saved. I then replied that I would like to have the red on my forehead, like the Hindu’s. But that was not an option  

The hospital work is going great as well! since the last update, Joakim and I have worked on some Equipment and repaired another infant warmer (broken temperature gauge) and several ECG machines. The second week Joakim and I fixed an ECG machine for the Geriatric Ward. The manager was so happy about our repair, so she sends her staff to clean our workshop. however the staff has troubles reaching the roof, so we helped them. Last week Joakim and I spend the day helping the local contractors installing the new OT lights for the soon to be neuro OT. It was really fun to work with the locals, but also really frustrating. After a long day Friday, they asked us to give a hand Saturday, which we of cause accepted.  We agreed to meet up around 9 to do the final preparations before assembling the new light. Joakim arrived at 9 sharp and went directly to OT 5 to meet the others but nobody came…
We waited for about an hour, where we did a little cleaning and some preparations before we decided to call the engineers. The local engineer had decided to take the day off but said that the contractors would be there any minute thus we waited for another hour before going to the workshop. On the way we ran into the contractors, just arriving at the hospital (at 11:20 ish). The contractors said that they would get started around 12, so we decided to some work. Around 12:30 we finally got back to work. We worked until 17 and completed the installation of the new OT light.

Week two of our stay, we tried to focus on helping the staff providing better care for the young ones. We worked on infants warmers, incubators and fetal monitors. One of the days Lilam (the local BME engineer) brought us to the NICU (Neonatal intensive care unit) where they had some problems with a compressor. The NICU has oxygen in the walls, which is mixed with atmospheric air and then given to the newborn. The pressure in the compressor was, however, insufficient, and we were unable to see why. Together with Lilam we then decided to unplug it and replace it. 

By Christine Stampe Hvidtfeldt

Time for a little update from Christine! This weekend has been dedicated to group trips planned by VSN. We met with 18 (out of 28) of the other participants in Pokhara Friday afternoon. The remaining participants went on longer treks, or to a Chitwan Nationalpark in other parts of Nepal.

Pokhara is a very touristy town west of Kathmandu. It’s close by many of the popular treks, and is thereby a great stop for trekkers going to a trek or back to Kathmandu. Eventhough it’s off-season for treks, we still saw many “white” people – which is a really rare sight in all the small towns we’re working in! Pokhara is placed in a valley with Fewa Lake in the middle – incredibly beautiful!

We left Beni to go to Pokhara Friday morning and arrived late Friday afternoon (despite it being ca. 2h drive… Nepali transport…). By the time all arrived we were very really hungry and went to a nearby restaurant – which served something other than dalbhaat! Dalbhaat is rice with some sauce and maybe vegetables, and is served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So many we’re very pleased with being able to order pasta or pizza! For dinner we went to an amazing Isreali restaurant arranged by VSN, with cheap drinks  (see pictures below).

Saturday was dedicated to sightseeing! We went to all the “must-sees” in sweltering heat. At the very last sightseeing stop the monsun really showed! And it poured from Saturday afternoon until we all left Sunday… Great. But this didn’t ruin the good mood, and we had a lot of fun in our small hotel with the local apple liqour in the evening 

All in all, great to see the other participants, and get to experience Pokhara!

We’re starting to get familiar at the hospital! The regular technician Sabina has been away to visit her family for a week, which has given us the opportunity to finish our inventory of all the equipment in the hospital (which proved slightly difficult since they just started a huge upgrade of the hospital and is therefore moving the equipment all over the place). But we also got the chance to work on some old discarded equipment which was stored in the workshop. Fixing this equipment gives the staff flexibility if some of the current equipment breaks, there will be a spare.

The hospital hours are from 10-17 every day, but we have a key to the workshop which enables us to manage our own working hours (we’ve discovered we’re a lot more effective after lunch, and then we don’t mind staying later).

Hospital Experience - Silje

We have now been at Gorkha District Hospital for four weeks, and are finished with the Summer Institute 2017 in Nepal. We are two girls from Norway who are staying here, me, and biomedical engineering student, and the other a mechanical engineering student.

The first few days of at the hospital we used to get an overview of the equipment and its condition. We also got the job of making a report on the hospital to get an overview of how many beds they have, what they can measure at the lab, and how many patients they have yearly. Our first impression of the hospital was very nice, the staff was welcoming and they gave us a room to work in which we share with the maintenance staff. The main maintenance guy, Durga, was very helpful and helped us ordeing parts we needed for the machines. He did not speak any English, and we were communicating with the little Nepali we knew.

At Gorkha District Hospital they had no technician, and easy repairs was not being done because the staff did not know how.

Now, after four weeks here we have been able to go through most of the equipment they have, and fixed the things we can, but some of it is too damaged or even dangerous to use, and is needed to be thrown away. Sadly, they have nowhere to throw it and is just taking up space in the storage rooms.

We were staying with a really sweet family and the mom was an amazing cook, we were never leaving hungry from the table. We called her aamaa, which is Nepali for mom, and she did not speak English. But if she talked really slow we can understand some of what she is saying, also with a lot of help from miming and hand movements .

We also did a secondary project while we were at the hospital. One of our first days there, one of the head nurses at the ER told us that they really wanted curtains to separate the 8 bed that were in the ER, to give more privacy to the patients. We decided that this was a really good idea for a secondary projects. We got a lot of help from the maintenance staff, and are really happy with the results.

By Christine Stampe Hvidtfeldt

We arrived in Thimi which is a suburb of Kathmndu, we’re four Danes and one French staying with an amazing host family consisting of two older children (21 and 19) and one younger niece (2-years old) Grace. Grace was very shy at first but now won’t stop talking and is calling all the girls “Didi” which means olders sister. 

The other groups are staying in Bode or Pepsicola, all relatively close. Pepsicola is 3.5 km from Thimi where we live, so we decieded to walk home one of the first nights… Turns out, when Google Maps says there “is a road” it may as well be big rocks placed across a rice field! So what should have taken 35 mins, took more than an hour – but we made it back safely! 

On Saturday we all went sightseeing, first to the Buddha Stupa (show above) it’s actually really huge. The colorful flags are buddhist prayer flags. If you look closely you can see the prayers written on them.

The morning rush here is no joke! From 8.30-12 the traffic will be almost dead still on the two main roads that go through Kathmandu. On our free-day Sunday we went to the popular shopping district Thamel. To get there we walked a bit and then got on a bus the last of the way. They drive in the left hand side, and like  crazy! Also, a general rule: there is ALWAYS room for one more on the bus! 

It’s mostly dry in the morning /start afternoon, but we really feel the monsoun season in the late afternoon/evening! Here we have the Poncho Pack after dinner before fitting 6 people in a 3-person cab to go back to Thimi and Pepsicola. But the weather is warm and not windy, so the rain is actually ok.

We’re quite a tourist attraction with our blond hair and pale skin  So people will often “discretly” take pictures of us as we walk around.