UK-based charity Community Action Nepal is still working hard to improve the living and working conditions of local residents in the wake of 2015’s devastating earthquakes. To express our support for the ongoing initiative after helping to rebuild essential infrastructure, Tetra Tech has re-purposed a batch of end-of-use laptops to be sent to the charity.
Supplying the charity in the remote North Gorkha region of Nepal with reliable laptops means a suite of dramatic quality of life improvements for daily operations in terms of connectivity, reporting, morale boost, and staying technologically relevant.
Murari Gautam, Director, Community Action Nepal, said: “The CAN team is very grateful and thankful to Tetra Tech. The laptops will be used to provide vital telemedicine and the ability to improve data capture in the remote Himalayas. If we can provide a network of laptops across the whole region, we will be able to monitor and evaluate the impact of remote medicine in this very isolated part of the world. Thank you to Tetra Tech once again for their generosity and kindness to the people of Nepal.”
CAN partners with remote mountain communities to provide vital local healthcare, education, income generation, cultural and mountain porter welfare facilities. These are all essential in a region that suffers from isolation and a lack of basic infrastructure, roads and safe drinking water.
Providing these facilities grants easier access to health care, avoiding a roughly week-long walk to the nearest road just to access transport to the district hospital at Gorkha. Over the last three years, Tetra Tech helped ensure all of CAN’s health posts were rebuilt to incorporate earthquake-resistant features. This included carrying out planning and damage assessments, supporting building designs and deploying resources within challenging environments.
CAN currently operates eight posts spread across the high and remote areas of Lho, Prok, Sama Gaun, and Bihi Phedi. The laptops will be used throughout these posts, with benefits including:
- Allowing nurses to keep reporting templates and spreadsheets to capture vital statistics and data to inform medical trends and measure medical care impact in rural locations.
- Providing access to telemedicine, giving nurses the chance to receive second opinions and guidance from trains doctors remotely on more complex and challenging diagnoses.
- Connecting nurses to other medical professionals and peers.
Health spend in Nepal is just over $2 per person, with nine doctors in the Gorkha district serving a population of over 270,000 people. Evidence suggests that the Gorkha district is amongst the worst in Nepal for maternal, neonatal and postnatal health, malnutrition and child mortality, with only 15 percent of deliveries attended by a skilled birth attendant.
CAN has operated health posts in Nepal for over a decade. We wish them the very best in their fight ahead.