Health Project 2010

New Futures Nepal trustee Helen Crook and supporter Tracey Burge visited Nepal to undertake health project on behalf of New Futures Nepal. Helen, a paediatric nurse who currently works with children with complex health care needs in the community in her local area and Tracey an experienced physiotherapist who lectures in physiotherapy in the UK, successfully applied for funding from the British Medical Association Humanitarian Grants scheme to enable them to undertake a specific project in Nepal for New Futures Nepal. 

The project was aims were to;

• Assess individual children’s health needs and implement plans to improve the children’s health in the Hope centre and hornbeam house orphanages.
• Transference of skills to staff to enable them to meet the needs of the children and improve quality of life and functional ability of the children with disabilities or specific health needs.
• Educate staff and children regarding first aid skills and infection control and hygiene.
• To improve networking and liaison with local professionals, improving access to health resources locally.

In addition to this Helen and Tracey were invited to teach first aid and infection control to local school children in both Kathmandu and Kalimpong.
Despite logistical problems thrown their way by volcanos erupting in Iceland, power cuts in Kalimpong and general strike in Kathmandu the project was very successful and the majority of its aims were met in full.
All the staff and children in both orphanages participated and enjoyed the first aid training. The content of the course was designed to be interactive and to cover topics pertinent to life style in Nepal and India. The message regarding hygiene and infection control centred around preventing spread of infection and hand washing. 

This session was followed up with a discussion on improving access to hand washing in both homes and culminated in the building of hand washing stations to facilitate continued hand washing. The hand washing stations were designed in conjunction with staff and the guidance of Mark Tobias who also accompanied us on the trip. His building skills were passed on to staff and children who also enjoyed participating in building the hand washing areas.

New hand washing stations at Hornbeam house (above) and Hope centre (below)

Assessment of individual children’s disabilities and needs also proved useful and the staff learnt physiotherapy skills to aid function and mobility of several children. Particular focus was spent with two new girls and a physiotherapy programme for them put in place.

The opportunity to teach infection control and hand washing in a local school in Kalimpong was an added bonus and proved both popular and useful to the local community. It also gained local interest generally and both Helen and Tracey’s work was filmed and shown on local television news channel!

Since their return the staff and children have continued with the plans put in place and significant improvements have been noticed. Tracey and Helen continue to liaise closely with the staff and other professionals by email and plan to follow up their work during future visits.  A full report of their trip will be available at New Futures Nepal AGM in March 2011.