News of the health needs for Tibetans in north-west Sichuan has spread, and this summer nine doctors and six health professionals took part over a two month period. They came from Canada, UK and Italy for whatever time they could.
Dr Anya Adair, who works in Edinburgh, gave us her account:
"This summer we joined the Yushu Western Health clinic for the fourth year. Again it was held in the Rokpa School for orphans, but this year a building has specifically been built to house the clinic. It is situated at the gates of the orphanage. The first floor is for an eye clinic, the ground floor for the medical clinic. When we arrived the building had not yet been completely finished, with no glass in the windows and no electricity.
In the first few days we cleaned the five rooms, and found furniture from storage in the school. The group I joined comprised four doctors, a trainee doctor, trainee nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and two helpers. Our translators were seven Tibetan medical graduates from the orphanage.
The equipment we took included five wheelchairs, one of which was given to 17 year old Soncha Palmo with paraplegia, from TB meningitis. When seen last year she had severe pressure sores over hips and sacrum, and we left dressings and instructions with her mother. This year the sores had almost completely healed - her mother had done an excellent job.
We saw a patient who two years ago
had been carried into the clinic on his wife’s back. He was a taxi driver and had been in a collision resulting in a severe fracture of his left leg. We sponsored his operation and hospital stay, which cost just over £400. He has fully recovered, and is now back at work.
Your money helped to provide painkillers for arthritis, a year’s supply of medicines, and treatments at the local hospital. Example of prices:
- Blood test £2.00
- kidney scan £4.00
- CT abdomen scan £14
We are so grateful for the donations which made all this possible."
As the morning mists of Kathmandu lift, hunched figures wrapped in ragged, shabby clothes make their way to the Rokpa soup kitchen in Boudha. Here, tiny hands will be warmed by a cup of hot chai and worn fingers will tear apart freshly-made Tibetan bread.
For the past 15 winters Rokpa volunteers have provided this daily service to the poor and destitute of Nepal. Each December it takes five days to transform a vacant plot of land with tarpaulin fencing, bamboo poles for seats and colourful prayer flags, into the soup kitchen. Last winter an average of 370 men, women and children turning up for breakfast and 420 for lunch every day. That takes an incredible 90 kilos of rice, 45 kilos each of potatoes and vegetables, 8 kilos of lentils, also half a kilo of tea for the chai and 370 roti or Tibetan bread.
Last year two Nepali women joined our faithful Nepali cook, Shiva, and his son-in-law, Govinda, to help chop vegetables. Both are long-time visitors to the soup kitchen who were delighted to be asked to help alongside others, including some of the older children from the Rokpa Children’s Home while on their holidays.
Donate by Phone - 01387 373232 ext 230
ROKPA UK Overseas Projects
Kagyu Samye Ling, Eskdalemuir, Langholm, Dumfriesshire DG13 0QL
Telephone: 013873 73232 Ext: 230
Fax: 013873 73223
email: charity@RokpaUK.org
ROKPA Trust Reg. Charity No: 1059293
