Q Life Magazine Q Magazine (US) December 2015 | Page 65

Humanitarian Aid |
Helping Out
On The Ground
in Nepal
A
101-year-old man who spent seven days trapped
in rubble after the Nepalese earthquake was
one of the patients treated at a field hospital set up by
the Qatar Red Crescent. Funchu Tamang was rescued
from the ruins of his house seven days after the
building collapsed around him. Miraculously, he had
only suffered minor cuts.
Qatar Red Crescent (QRC)
was one of the first
organizations to respond to
the devastating, 7.8-magnitude
earthquake that hit Nepal on
April 25, 2015. Within 30
minutes of the news, QRC
began plans for an emergency
operations room. The
humanitarian organization
then dedicated $275,000
for emergency relief operations
focusing on health, shelter,
water, sanitation, and reuniting
families. A call for $3.3 million
in additional donations
soon followed.
Nepal two days after the disaster. Most of the supplies,
including food, medicines, generators, and tents, were
handed over to Nepalese authorities for distribution
in the worst-hit areas. A portable water and sanitation
system was also donated.
Some of the supplies from Qatar were used to set up
a QRC field hospital, a mobile medical unit used to
assist the overstretched local
facilities. The hospital had
three doctors, six nurses, a
pharmacist, and a team of
12–15 volunteers, many locals.
It included an emergency unit,
an operating theater for simple
surgeries, a maternity unit,
and an emergency lab and
pharmacy.
Nepal’s wounds will
take longer to heal.
But they could have
been much deeper,
if not for the response
from organizations
around the world,
including the Qatar
Red Crescent.
The earthquake, its epicenter 50 miles northwest of
Katmandu, killed more than 9,000 people and destroyed
a quarter of a million residences, leaving hundreds of
thousands of people homeless. A major aftershock on
May 12 killed another 200 people.
The Qatar National Search and Rescue Team flew four
planes full of aid material—a total of 240 tons—into
The field hospital treated 308
patients in its first two days
of operation and continued
to treat several hundred per
day for the next three months.
One of the first patients
to be discharged was Funchu Tamang, who was met
by his 65-year-old daughter, Gauri Maya Ghale.
His wounds had been bandaged and he left with a course
of antibiotics to treat a mild case of pneumonia.
Nepal’s wounds will take longer to heal. But they
could have been much deeper, if not for the response
from organizations around the world, including the
Qatar Red Crescent.
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