Health

Mountainous areas of Nepal offer many challenges for the delivery of primary healthcare. Many villages are very difficult to reach and are not accessible by road. These areas are often affected by natural disasters, such as earthquakes, landslides and flooding due to monsoon rains. This makes deliveries of medical supplies and the movement of staff very challenging, meaning that many health posts in these areas are under-equipped and under-staffed.

In the villages we work in, less than 20% of the population have a secure food supply all year round. This causes high levels of malnutrition, exacerbates the problems of existing disease and contributes to high rates of infant mortality.

In urban areas of Nepal, many people are living healthier lives than in the past decade. Nevertheless, in rural areas, people are still suffering needlessly from preventable diseases and too many are dying prematurely. Overcoming disease and ill health will require concerted and sustained efforts, focusing on population groups and regions that have been neglected by healthcare provision and are at risk of being left behind. This is where PHASE Worldwide works in accordance with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 3: ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all.

What do we do?

PHASE places two qualified Nepali health workers (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives – ANMs) in the village health centres. Over time, the staff become an important part of the community as they build relationships of trust and gain the respect of villagers, working alongside and supplementing the skills of the government health workers. ANMs are experienced in antenatal care, child health and nutrition. Medicines and equipment are provided to ensure the health post is able to deal with a wide range of illnesses and situations, increasing the number of patients seen by health workers. The ANMs also conduct an outreach programme with street dramas, nutrition workshops and door to door visits to engage villagers and raise awareness of health problems and health services.

The most important element of our work is capacity building and developing resilience. The project is designed in a way that allows handover to the government when PHASE withdraws. This raises awareness of the importance of healthcare provision and empowers communities to request further support from their local government.

What’s the Impact?

Chamaki Rawat is a 25-year-old woman from a remote village in Nepal. Chamaki gave birth for the first time last year but because she and her family live so far from the health post, she was unable to get there during labour. Chamaki, like many young women in Nepal, had her baby at home. Unfortunately, she faced complications during child birth and couldn’t deliver the placenta.

In a scenario like this, it would have taken days for Chamaki to reach the District Hospital to receive the vital healthcare that she needed. However, in the early hours of her labor, Chamaki’s family alerted the ANMs who came to the family home as fast as they could.

On arrival, Chamaki had delivered her baby but she appeared very unwell and hardly conscious. The ANMs emptied her bladder with a catheter and successfully removed the placenta. They gave her antibiotics and IV fluids, which over the course of the next few days, supported Chamaki’s full recovery.

Before the ANMs left Chamaki and her new born child, Chamaki’s husband Hari told the ANMs “I had lost hope in my wife surviving as the hospital is too far away. I am so grateful to PHASE for saving her life. We are indebted to PHASE for providing lifesaving services in such remote places in Nepal.”

PHASE has been working in extremely remote areas for many years and this case demonstrates our success in providing primary healthcare to those in desperate need. In this instance, we were once again able to save a life at birth.