Gorneti Model hospital, which was inaugurated in April 2006, was built by thousands of local volunteers in cooperation with “All Nepal Public Health Workers’ Association” (PHWA). The hospital serves a population of approximately three hundred thousand villagers within a catchment area of 4 – 5 days walking – its location is far off-road in the mountainous area of Western Nepal. Currently the hospital has an active out-patient service, small laboratory and x-ray, pharmacy, dressing room and operation theatre. There are six beds for in-patients. The hospital is supposed to be a model for developing local solutions to local health problems, a model that can be adopted in other areas of the country later. The Gorneti Model Hospital was built both as a service to the local population, and as a venue of treatment for injured casualties from the internal conflict in Nepal. The high trauma mortality was partly related to lack of safe access to treatment in the cities, and the difficulty in evacuating the injured to hospitals in India. During the current political process, the trauma patients coming to the hospital are mainly burns-cases and injured from farming, logging and falling. The hospital tries to respond to an unmet need for curative and diagnostic services in a population with otherwise no real access to health care.
TMC in cooperation with a solidarity group of volunteers in Norway - “Healthteam to Nepal” (HtN) – started implementation of the Tromsoe model of medics training in November 2006. The trainees were selected by the Nepali counterpart PHWA. The trainees have varied formal backgrounds and experiences, and came from different areas of rural Nepal. The first training was conducted in the premises of the Gorneti Model Hospital, and the second course was held in Dahaban further down the valley in February 2008. Some of the medics from the first training had conducted first aid courses for fellow medics and lay personnel in their home areas. After the second training, this will be systematically followed up by all the medics.
In the Rapti region, the health indicators of the population are poor in absolute figures, and also compared to the national average in Nepal. High maternal and child mortality, poverty, and lack of education are indicative of the harsh living conditions among the population. In addition to offering diagnostic and curative services, the Gorneti model hospital with outreach teams to villages in the catchments can act as a teaching and resource centre for public health interventions.
Due to the high number of patients coming for treatment at the hospital, most resources are used for diagnosis and treatment of individuals. However, there are plans for a gradual upgrade of equipment and staff skills, in order to expand the services into becoming a referral centre for treatment of traumatic and obstetric emergencies. There are also plans for linking a rehabilitation workshop producing assistive devices to the hospital. The first improvement will be to get hydro-electric power supply from a nearby river.
The ”Save Lives Save limbs” edition is under translation to Nepali, with the aim of improving medics’ and other health-workers skills in pre-hospital life saving and in-hospital treatment.
View Larger Map