Kathmandu on Strike

Namaste everyone

If I said it has been frantically busy that would be an understatement! We have been working at the Scheer Memorial Hospital since Sunday last week and the Scheer is certainly a pleasure to work at after what we faced at Dadeldhura – but still presents challenges.

Just before we came here from Kathmandu we heard that there was to be a country-wide strike on Thursday. That meant that the country virtually shuts down – no one goes to work, no cars or busses are on the road. It can actually be very dangerous to be in a car as you are likely to get rocks thrown at you (or worse). We were reassured by the hospital and friends that hospital vehicles were allowed and that tourists were never targeted. That said, it does cause some unease and uncertainty.

The strike then spread to 2 days – Wednesday & Thursday. To add to that, there were also strikes earlier in the week in the Terrai (the area of Nepal near the Indian border). That meant that a lot of our patients could not get to us and the hospital coordinator Ram (known to us as Max) was worried that we would not have enough work to do. That did not eventuate as the local people heard we were here and we had no trouble filling our theatre lists for the first few days.

But then the inevitable happened (as it usually does in Nepal) and all our patients started arriving from the Terrai and we had an oversupply! Luckily (no, that’s the wrong word – it wasn’t luck – it was people giving their heart and soul) we have a very strong team and they worked until they got through all the patients who had traveled so far to get to us and needed our help.