WA team fills a void in Nepal aid
A Jeep packed with a seven-strong paramedical team from Perth and their aid supplies struggles along rubble-strewn roads and across ditches in earthquake-stricken Nepal.
Often the paramedics are forced to get out to clear rocks and earth from the blocked road with their hands so the journey can continue.
But these volunteers, who put their lives in Perth on hold to go to Nepal just after the quake struck on April 25, are determined to get to Nepal's "forgotten villages".
Total destruction confronted the team when they arrived at the place where a village once stood proudly.
Nat Crewe and Carrie Bane in Nepal. Picture: Backpacker Medics
Backpacker Medics founder Nathan Burns said at least 56 houses had been levelled, 13 people killed and many more injured.
"Before us lay the remnants of a village, huge piles of mud, listing roofs, horizontal walls and burnt beams," he said.
"As far as the eye could see, the lives of honest, hard-working people lay in tatters."
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The paramedics soon found out that no aid or medical help had reached the ruined village, so they quickly set up their mobile treatment centre.
Over five days, the team treated between 350 and 400 people, mostly the very young and very old, in more than 50 villages or spots along the roadside.
Mr Burns said that when they left Perth two days after the earthquake, he was unsure exactly how, as a small team of medical volunteers, they would best contribute to the aid effort.
But their niche soon became obvious.
He said while the large-scale aid operations were focused on Kathmandu and internationally known areas such as Everest and the Annapurna Circuit, survivors in villages they visited outside the capital said they had had no help or contact from the Nepalese Government or aid agencies.
"We found ourselves treating hideous injuries, the like of which would entail substantial hospital stays in any Western medical setting," Mr Burns said.
"We were plugging a gaping hole in what had been so far a poorly organised and ineffective disaster response."
Perth volunteers treat Nepalese earthquake victims. Picture: Backpacker Medics
In this devastated village, people had been struggling for days to cope with their injuries, while mourning the loss of loved ones, homes and livelihoods.
"They simply don't have the money to get to a major hospital," Mr Burns said.
"They probably, in Nepali fashion, thought I'm not important and not really injured, even though they have got a big gaping wound.
"Others feel a responsibility to stick around."
Within minutes, the team dealt with an untreated 8cm head wound, a woman with a broken arm that she had tried to splint with bamboo webbing and a patient with a serious head injury who was in a buffalo shed.
Mr Burns told how a crying woman in her 60s approached, saying her husband and son had been killed when their house collapsed.
She survived but was buried up to her neck for three hours before she could dig herself out.
The village had, like many others affected by the earthquake, run out of food.
With the rice planting season about to begin in Nepal, the temblor destroyed many people's already low rice stocks.
The Australian Government said yesterday it would give an additional $10 million to help Nepal's long-term recovery.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the money would be used to establish small businesses and generate income, send vulnerable children to school and rebuild better and safer schools.
Ms Bishop said Australia had already contributed $10 million in humanitarian assistance after the quake.
Backpacker Medics will hold its annual fundraising event, Organised Chaos, in Perth on Saturday.
Proceeds from the all-ages urban challenge will go towards the Moonlight Community Health centre, which Backpacker Medics has built and set up in the village of Kerasawara, east of Kathmandu.
To donate to Backpacker Medics' earthquake relief fund or to register for Organised Chaos, go to backpackermedics.com.
