Among them are many adolescents who have severe heart problems caused by rheumatic fever during childhood. These young patients are treated by heart specialists at the “Shahid Ghangalal Heart Centre” in Kathmandu, the only one in Nepal.

The health care project encompasses a number of other activities:

• Treatment of emergency patients
• Treatment of villagers in remote areas by health camps
• Information on diseases by spreading health-related news through local radio stations
• Support to health posts to provide basic medical services in remote areas
• Training of local health staff (health assistants, midwives)
• Supporting a shelter for traumatized women and children

Charity Dispensary in Kathmandu

Since there is no health insurance system in Nepal, all medical services must be paid privately. Treatments by specialists  are relatively expensive and can only be carried out in the capital. But the farmers who usually have no cash income at all cannot pay for these treatments and the medications.

Thus, the idea of a “charity dispensary” was conceived where medication is given to patients at no charge upon presentation of a doctor’s prescription. The first of these dispensaries was opened in 2003 in Kathmandu at the Shahid Ghangalal Heart Centre and supplies poor patients with the necessary medications. Another one started in 2007 outside of Kathmandu.