Couple off to work in Nepal

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34026, 15 December 1975, Page 5

Couple off to work in Nepal

Because. Nepal was! being opened up to tourism. and the people were liecoming increasingly Westernised, the work of doctors and teachers was becoming more necessary. said a Volunteer Service Abroad couple "ho will leave for Nepal tomorrow. Dr Robert Riley, aged 26. •nd his wife, Leigh, who is a secondary schoolteacher.

have been selected by the V.S.A to spend two years at the hospital established by Sir Edmund Hillarv at Kunde. 13,000 feet up the Mount Everest track in the Himalayas. The hospital is a 14-bed unit which serves the people within a day’s walk—about 10 to 12 miles at that altitude.: A second hospital will open' at Paphlu in January, and this will probably be 'staffed by two more New Zealand; doctors selected by the V.S.A.; Most of the hospital's work; will be preventive medicine, with emphasis on two! diseases — goitre, which is' combated by iodine injec-i tions every three vears, and: tuberculosis, which is also prevented by inoculation. Much of the treatment given' by the doctor and his staffj of one -Sherpa nurse, and ai helper, is for out-patients. '

The hospital also has a I cook. Dr Riley will also be able to seek assistance from his wife when her teaching ! duties at the local school at Khunjung are over each day. Dr Riley has passed a diploma of obstetrics examination, and has learned ■to do his own X-rays and pathological testing. Mrs Riley has been study-1 ing the local language. Nepali, from language tapes, and may be a few words! ahead of her husband. Nepali ; is the mam language, the! 'Sherpa people having a dif-i ferent dialect. But because; iso many foreigners are; [entering the country, Mrs; Rilev will teach mainly in! English. The staple diet is rice andi I potatoes, but Mrs Riley is ; certain that they will return! home about the same weight.; because most of the likely; (weight gain will be walked! I off. As well as cold weather (Clothing, for it will be about! minus 15 deg. in the mid-' winter nights when they! arrive, they will take vegetable seeds, and their guitar and recorders. All their music has been; taped, but the player will! have to be battery powered,! because there is only one generator at the hospital.' . !

.and that is used to provide i power for the X-ray 'machine.