Seeing past patients

Assessment and patient selection has been challenging this year. We commenced our assessments and saw 76 people, but sadly 75% did not require surgery. Some we could not assist with which was sad, others did not require intervention which was more positive! On top of this issue, a large number of patients that had been selected for surgery (approximately 50%) were unable to attend for surgery due to school exams or work etc, which was disappointing for all those concerned.

A big group of people came from the far west of Nepal without any prior knowledge of either our team, or our colleagues at Scheer Memorial Hospital. Usually we have some idea as one of the Scheer staff have seen the patient, and emailed pictures to us for consideration. Thankfully we have been able to assist some of this group also.

We were all excited to see Nishant (Mr 5000) – a parient from last visit. He looked at us andfrowned, and then the memory clicked in and he was more than happy to be cuddled by team members. He spent the time running around excitedly and used the gate as a swing and the quadrangle as his playfield. He was able to run around well which meant that surgery was not necessary at this time.

We have also meet a couple of other patients from previous years and it is great to see them progressing. Aarati is now a beautiful young lady of 20 years, and has regained function of her left hand previously and this year we operated on her right hand.