Treck & Help

About the Trek & Treat campaign: Lubhu Eye Care in collaboration with our association is a group of Nepalese optometrists who love to travel and hike in places in Nepal. This group generally organizes hikes in the spring and from October to November each year. We started to think about including our optometry skills in our passion for hiking and doing something good for people in rural Nepal. With the main motto of providing a clear vision in each region, we have run cataract screening and surgery camps in Nepal. With this Trek & Treat campaign, we want to screen people in these rural areas for cataracts and other eye health problems around our trekking route, treat them and take them to the nearby eye hospital for surgery if necessary. This time, we plan to travel the Jumla - Phoksundo region located in the far west of Nepal for trekking and to carry out screening camps in the company of voluntary foreign tourists. Goal: In addition to screening for cataract patients, we will also treat patients and provide them with prescription and sunglasses. On the way to the trek, we will provide eye health education to locals, especially teachers and local traditional healers (Dhami, Jhakri) and teach them basic health care and hygiene maintenance. in general. We will also screen children for all errors and refractive conditions such as amblyopia, strabismus and binocular vision abnormalities. If children are diagnosed with these conditions, we will investigate each case and start a visual therapy session as soon as possible at a nearby hospital or health post. Basic procedures such as patch therapy will be advised for parents of amblyopic children and further planning of visual therapy will also be advised in detail. We plan to consult elderly people with cataracts and support them in the process of surgery. The Jumla - Phoksundo region is located in the far west of Nepal. Due to its geographic structure, this region has very limited access to general and eye health services. Low-income areas around this route like Naphukana, Balasa, Tibrikot are not mainly accessible by basic hospitals. Due to the hills and high and low terrain, it is difficult to organize very often surgical eye health camps. Bilateral mature cataracts on most patients in this region are not treated due to the families' low income status and their inability to get to the basic hospital. With this Trek & Treat campaign, we want to reach these inaccessible people and help them see better. We plan to do this by working alongside eye health centers in the Jumla district, local volunteers, nearby base hospitals and other health professionals. For us, the main cause of blindness in this world is ignorance and inaccessibility and that is why we want to focus our efforts on prevention and reach the inaccessible in order to diagnose them and take charge of operations. Limitation: During our first Trek & Treat campaign, we were unable to reach many locations due to our limited funds. All expenses were covered by our team of four volunteers. We still need support to be able to conduct surgical camps against cataracts. Our camp in Khatyad was limited to a general eye exam by providing medicine and glasses. For this, we will need surgical equipment in order to prepare a surgical team for the T&T campaign. The major problem in such an area is the unavailability of health professionals who can walk 6 to 7 hours a day to reach these areas. The main difficulty is to bring the equipment to such places. Without a volunteer, we will need funds to sponsor a surgical team to go to such places, which will cost us mainly in transportation, accommodation and food. Provisional budget for our next T&T campaign in western Nepal (Jumla To Phoksundo): (Budget per person provided on request) This campaign will also encourage our ophthalmic community to organize similar health camps and coordinate with rural health posts and eye care centers to care for the needy in rural areas. ORGANIZATION Sakar Subedi Lubhu Eye Care Optometrist - Nepal Serge Currat Coordinator (Switzerland) CONTACT mail: himalayaneyeproject@gmail.com (+4177 482 05 65)