The 33rd Brinos Ear Camp in Nepalgunj and Damak in March 2007

Team Members(Nepalgunj):

Neil Weir (Guildford), Bob Mills (Edinburgh), Rob Evans (Swansea), Ellis Simon Edinburgh), Joan Browning (Edinburgh), Buddy and Dorothy Wong (Hong Kong), Adam Shulberg (London), Kashi Gyawali (Kathmandu), Puran Tharu and Tusha Roy (Nepalgunj).

Team Members (Damak):

Neil Weir, Bob Mills and Dharma Baskota (Kathmandu).

We arrived in Kathmandu to find the Maoists holding a olitical rally in Durbar quare, something that would have been unthinkable only a few months before. The Nepalgunj camp was held in the Medical College Hospital at Khoalpur and once again we were supported by the hospital staff, notably the theatre nurses led by Shushila Adikari. A total of 94 ear operations were carried out 128 hearing aids were issued. The camp was a great success and we managed to avoid the health problems which so often affect team members from outside Nepal! As usual we stayed at Traveller’s Village and were well fed and cared for by Candy and her team.

As a result of a review of the future direction of our work in Banke and surrounding districts, we decided to return to the Fateh-Bal Eye Hospital for the next camp in November, 2007.

The ‘mini-camp’ in Damak was the start of a new chapter in the work of BRINOS. At the instigation of the United Nations, we took the first steps towards setting up an ear care infrastructure in the far east of Nepal along the same lines as that which we have developed in the west. Patients were drawn from one of the camps for Bhutanese refugees in the area. We spent four days operating and carried out 12 major ear operations and 6 minor procedures in the AMDA Hospital which serves the camp. We hope that this ‘second front’ against ear disease in Nepal will develop further in the
coming years.

Robert Mills (2007)

The team visit the Fateh-Bal Eye Hospital

Copyright © BRINOS 2006-2009

Neil Weir and Buddy Wong at work

Bhutanese refugee camp, near Damak

Dharma Baskota operating in the AMDA Hospital, Damak

The AMDA Hospital theatre staff with Neil Weir, Bob Mills and Dharma Baskota