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“...these two types of
media played a critical role in facilitating
communication between grassroots aid
initiatives and earthquake affected people and
their families and friends, not only in Kathmandu
but also in neglected mountainous areas as well.
The author uses a personal, reflexive approach
to help situate the distinct experiences of
earthquake affected people including trauma
patients, people with disabilities, and volunteer
aid workers.
Keywords: Nepal, earthquake, trauma, citizens' response, health
care, disaster aid and relief.
Introduction
Sudan Gurung arrived by scooter at the Bir National
Trauma Center on April 25, 2015, carrying a man with
an injured leg. The entrance to the Trauma Center was
littered with injured people waiting for help. In the wake
of the 7.8 earthquake that occurred earlier that day, the
already overloaded healthcare system was itself in crit-
ical condition (HPS 2015; Pandey 2016; Sifferlin 2015;
Thomas 2015). While Sudan was at the Trauma Center, he
witnessed...”
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Page 7
“...seen it. They need more
resources, they need more personnel here right
now, and they’re expecting many more patients as
these rescue operations go on. They’re barely able
to keep up right now. It’s part of the reason they
asked me [to help]; I think they’re asking anybody
to try to pitch in. (Gupta quoted in Akkoc 2015)
Despite its at times intrusive, insensitive, voyeuristic, and
exploitive nature, the media coverage of the earthquake
did the get the word out. As is often the case in Nepali
health care settings, patient privacy was neither a concern
nor, at times, an option. And yet in some cases patients
were put in an awkward position of grabbing their 15
minutes of fame at a moment of crisis. We are left asking
how to balance these elements with the good they did by
drawing global attention to Nepal.
Amputation, Disability, and'Celebrity Victims'
The number of patients at the Trauma Center that had
sustained injuries that required amputation was stagger-
ing. Many of these were children...”
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Page 10
“...material aid, while the need for
psychological aid and counseling was largely overlooked
by the government in the first few months following the
earthquakes (Bhusal 2015; Kathmandu Post 2015a, 2015b;
Maharjan 2015).
Mental Health and Emotional Support
Mental health has been a chronically underdeveloped and
underfunded part of the Nepal healthcare system (WHO
2016; WHO-AIMS 2006). As Seale-Feldman and Upadhaya
(2015: para. 4) explain:
Nepali policymakers and international donors see this
moment as an opportunity to strengthen what has his-
torically been a weak mental health system, where less
than 1 percent of the government’s total health budget
has been allocated to mental health and there is one
practicing psychiatrist per million people. (WHO
and Ministry of Health and Population Nepal 2006).
This gap was largely filled by NGOs, Buddhist monasteries
(Lions Roar Staff 2015), and other grassroots initiatives.
However, these efforts were largely unreported by the
media.10 One novel approach...”
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“...numerous cricket awards even though she
was only 24 when I first met her in early April 2015. After
telling her about my volunteer work with I 2 We she and
others from RCW came to the Trauma Center to help.13
RCW brought encouragement and donations to patients
in the Trauma Center, and offered to teach them how
to play cricket after their recovery. I could see evidence
of this sort of positive impact through RCW’s in Nepal’s
post-earthquake moment, particularly in relation to mental
and emotional health.
I had begun working with RCW in the context of my
research on gender and mobility in Nepal. After recon-
necting with them in the Trauma Center, I helped RCW
organize a series of cricket training camps in communities
where I had conducted research in Nuwakot and Rasuwa,
and at camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) in
Nuwakot and Bhaktapur. These cricket camps helped
young people deal with the psychological trauma of the
disaster and its aftershocks, bringing together family
members and...”
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Page 12
“...the ways that
different kinds of citizen and volunteer responses to the
2015 earthquake helped fill gaps created by institutional
dysfunction, and how social media and more traditional
forms of media played crucial roles in these efforts. The
government would be wise to study these grassroots
responses as a model for rebuilding and strengthening the
state’s disaster response framework and institutions.
My time at the Trauma Center also highlighted the state of
health care in Nepal, revealing specific problem areas such
as mental health care and services for persons with dis-
abilities (see Acharya et al. 2016; Maru et al 2016; Sharma
2013). To its credit, the Bir Trauma Center provided free
services to any earthquake affected patient, filling a vital
gap left by other expensive private hospitals. A majority
of Bir Trauma Center’s patients came from traditionally
poor mountainous areas of Nepal. And yet, the quality of
healthcare was extremely uneven. High quality medical
care typically remains...”
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Page 14
“...References
ACPMH. 2013. Australian Guidelines for the Treatment of
Acute Stress Disorder & Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Phoenix: Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health.
Akkoc, Razvue. 2015. CNN’s Sanjay Gupta Performs Surgery
with Saw while Covering Nepal Earthquake. Telegraph.
co.uk, 28/4/ 2015. (Accessed on 25 September 2015).
Acharya, Bibhav, Jasmine Tenpa, Poshan Thapa,
Bikash Gauchan, David Citrin, & Maria Ekstrand. 2016.
Recommendations from Primary Care Providers for
Integrating Mental Health in a Primary Care System in
Rural Nepal. BMC Health Services Research 16: 492.
Adey, Peter. 2006. if Mobility is Everything Then it is
Nothing: Towards a Relational Politics of (im)mobilities.
Mobilities 1(1): 75-94.
Adhikari, L.B., U.P. Gautam, B.P. Koirala, M. Bhattarai, T.
Kandel, R.M. Gupta, C. Timsina, N. Maharjan, K. Maharjan,...”
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Page 15
“...2015. The April Earthquake Wrecked a
Third of Nepal’s Already Miserable Healthcare Facilities.
qz.com, 15/06/ 2015. (Accessed 3 April 2016).
WHO. 2016. One Year Post-quake, Nepal's Health Workforce
Remains Focused, Committed. World Health Organization.
searo.who.int, 2016. (Accessed 3
December 2016).
WHO- AIMS. 2006. A Report of the Assessment of the
Mental Health System in Nepal using the World Health
Organization - Assessment Instrument for Mental Health
Systems (WHO-AIMS). Kathmandu: WHO and Ministry of
Health Nepal.
54 HIMALAYA Fall2017...”
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