Projects: Healthcare
More than 30 hospitals and clinics throughout the Himalaya perform miracles every day with our help. Here's a sample.
Love Heals
Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children (HRDC)
A Children's Orthopedic Hospital
Eighteen years ago, AHF was introduced to an extraordinary doctor. He had trained in the U.S. and come back to his homeland determined to help Nepal's disabled children. Dr. Ashok Banskota's passion to heal poor children with clubfeet, TB of the spine, polio, untreated burns and infections has led him, and us, on a journey of miracles. We have supported him through two makeshift hospitals, helped him build a new, modern hospital just outside Kathmandu and now fund his surgical costs.
Dr. Banskota tells us the miracles are the children, who come from poor families who sometimes cannot afford even a bus ticket to reach the hospital. Many arrive with disfigured bodies and fearful faces. In the loving hands of the surgeons, nurses and hospital staff, the children transform. Some must have steel wires inserted into bones to stabilize or pull a limb straight. Others experience long surgeries and months of physical therapy. Their faces belie the physical pain. They beam with smiles, they throw jokes and sing songs. They tell us that love heals.
Every child who comes to the Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children is well cared for, and every day children leave the hospital with the ability to walk, leap and play. In the last year Dr. Banskota and his team performed over thirteen-hundred life-changing surgeries. AHF also offers scholarships to orthopedic residents who train with Dr. Banskota and who then become the backbone of his surgical team.
A Children's Orthopedic Hospital
Eighteen years ago, AHF was introduced to an extraordinary doctor. He had trained in the U.S. and come back to his homeland determined to help Nepal's disabled children. Dr. Ashok Banskota's passion to heal poor children with clubfeet, TB of the spine, polio, untreated burns and infections has led him, and us, on a journey of miracles. We have supported him through two makeshift hospitals, helped him build a new, modern hospital just outside Kathmandu and now fund his surgical costs.
Dr. Banskota tells us the miracles are the children, who come from poor families who sometimes cannot afford even a bus ticket to reach the hospital. Many arrive with disfigured bodies and fearful faces. In the loving hands of the surgeons, nurses and hospital staff, the children transform. Some must have steel wires inserted into bones to stabilize or pull a limb straight. Others experience long surgeries and months of physical therapy. Their faces belie the physical pain. They beam with smiles, they throw jokes and sing songs. They tell us that love heals.
Every child who comes to the Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children is well cared for, and every day children leave the hospital with the ability to walk, leap and play. In the last year Dr. Banskota and his team performed over thirteen-hundred life-changing surgeries. AHF also offers scholarships to orthopedic residents who train with Dr. Banskota and who then become the backbone of his surgical team.
Good care for pennies
Friends of Shanta Bhawan Clinic, Kathmandu
Taking care of an average of 13,000 patients a month is no easy task, but the staff at the Shanta Bhawan Clinic in Kathmandu is good at it. Very good in fact - the Clinic received the Daxya Gold Medal in recognition of their outstanding work treating tuberculosis patients. Almost all outpatient medical needs can be met here plus: immunizations, TB care, family planning, and pre-and post-natal care for mothers and children. Last year over 16,000 infants were vaccinated - a new record!
Director Luke Sunde, world's youngest octogenarian, has dedicated his retirement to running the clinic, and to making good care affordable for the poorest Nepalis and Tibetans, often refugees, in Kathmandu. Everything is on a sliding scale and the registration fee just 14 cents. Luke has led the clinic for 25 years, mentoring and coaching his 29 person staff. Most of the staff have been at FSB for so long they know many of their patients by name (which becomes more impressive when you realize they see 156,000 patients a year!)
Taking care of an average of 13,000 patients a month is no easy task, but the staff at the Shanta Bhawan Clinic in Kathmandu is good at it. Very good in fact - the Clinic received the Daxya Gold Medal in recognition of their outstanding work treating tuberculosis patients. Almost all outpatient medical needs can be met here plus: immunizations, TB care, family planning, and pre-and post-natal care for mothers and children. Last year over 16,000 infants were vaccinated - a new record!
Director Luke Sunde, world's youngest octogenarian, has dedicated his retirement to running the clinic, and to making good care affordable for the poorest Nepalis and Tibetans, often refugees, in Kathmandu. Everything is on a sliding scale and the registration fee just 14 cents. Luke has led the clinic for 25 years, mentoring and coaching his 29 person staff. Most of the staff have been at FSB for so long they know many of their patients by name (which becomes more impressive when you realize they see 156,000 patients a year!)
Healthcare, Tibetan Style
Lingshed, Ladakh
Lingshed is a high and remote valley in Ladakh. The eight villages in Lingshed Valley have no roads, hospitals or post offices and during the winter months, the passes are closed with snow, keeping the villagers in isolation. Six years ago AHF met Geshe Ngawang Jangchup, who was looking for a way to train local amchiis (traditional Tibetan medical doctors) so health care would be available to villagers year round. AHF said yes, and offered salaries for Tibetan doctors and scholarships for students.
In these six years, the health of the villagers has improved dramatically. We continue to help - with salaries for doctors who run a local clinic and funds to train more students. We helped to build a kitchen for the clinic so the newly trained amchiis can hold health workshops and seminars. We also purchased textbooks and a machine to grind traditional medicine. Mothers have the help they need when it's time to give birth and the very young and old can get medical attention when they most need it. A little help goes a long way here.
Lingshed is a high and remote valley in Ladakh. The eight villages in Lingshed Valley have no roads, hospitals or post offices and during the winter months, the passes are closed with snow, keeping the villagers in isolation. Six years ago AHF met Geshe Ngawang Jangchup, who was looking for a way to train local amchiis (traditional Tibetan medical doctors) so health care would be available to villagers year round. AHF said yes, and offered salaries for Tibetan doctors and scholarships for students.
In these six years, the health of the villagers has improved dramatically. We continue to help - with salaries for doctors who run a local clinic and funds to train more students. We helped to build a kitchen for the clinic so the newly trained amchiis can hold health workshops and seminars. We also purchased textbooks and a machine to grind traditional medicine. Mothers have the help they need when it's time to give birth and the very young and old can get medical attention when they most need it. A little help goes a long way here.