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| Volunteering with NSI |
| Matt's Story |
Truck Stop
As we were winding our way down 4 hours of snake-like dirt roads that clutched the hillsides of Salyan district on our way back from visiting its tiny hilltop hospital, we came across an extremely unusual occurrence – a traffic jam. Once our dusty Landcruiser had rolled to a stop, Dr. Bhusan and I asked our driver, Kumar, what was going on. After a few minutes of speculation, we began to notice that the cars were all empty and only a few people were milling around. Overcome with curiosity, we got out of the car and walked down to the source of the blockage, a single truck parked in the middle of the road surrounded by a few dozen curious onlookers. Inside was a woman having a baby. Worried about the level of care available at her understaffed district hospital, lacking even a doctor, she, her sister and her husband decided to drive the 6 hours down to Surkhet where there were two doctors and a bigger hospital. However the baby couldn’t wait and he was born in the cab of his father’s truck in the middle of a mountainside road. We arrived on the scene moments later, introducing ourselves as a trained doctor and a certified EMT/First-year Medical Student only to be met with the new aunt’s head popping out of the truck and telling us matter-of-factly that the baby was out and that we were not needed. Dejected, we turned to head back to the steamy Landcruiser. The next thing I knew, before we had walked 3 steps, that same voice called out from inside the truck in a slightly sweeter tone, “Excuse me. Now, how do you stop the bleeding?”
When I began my two month stay in Nepal, I probably wouldn’t have understood what would motivate a woman to risk her and her child’s life, just to have a doctor present at her child’s birth. I know that in the US that is the norm, but I’ve been to other developing countries where midwives and nurses can do the same thing in just as safe a manner. What I came to learn in Nepal is that there aren’t enough midwives and nurses to go around, let alone doctors. The nearest ones can be hours driving or days walking away from where people live…where they are needed. Traveling from the misty tea fields of Ilam, down to the dusty hustle and bustle of Birgunj and Butwal and back up into the mysterious hill districts of Rolpa and Pyuthan, I, along with my friend Dr. Bhusan Neupane, was able to experience the Nepalese healthcare system first hand and begin imagining ways to improve it. As we traveled along, my counterpart and I discussed the problems that are unique to Nepal, such as Nepal’s unimaginably diverse geography, the concentration of aid in the Kathmandu Valley that ignores rural Nepal, and the lack of a government responsive to the plight of its people. Hopefully those last two problems are changing as Nepal moves into a new era, especially with the help of NSI. I hope that I can continue working with NSI to help the people of Nepal live happier and healthier lives.
Nepal presents all health care students and professionals the opportunity to interact with a developing health care system in a fundamental way. The doctors and politicians in Nepal need energetic and open-minded people with backgrounds in developed health care systems to observe the successes and shortcomings there and to work with Nepali health care professionals to both transfer their skills and carry out beneficial change. At this dawn of a new age in Nepal, those in power are more receptive to change than they have ever been and there is an amazing opportunity to contribute in ways that will benefit people for decades. I loved traveling the country and collecting information that will help make Nepal a better place and I can’t wait to go back!
Matt Griffith, a medical student at Stony Brook University in New York, spent his summer 2006 vacation volunteering in Nepal with NSI. |
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