Charity Project

ONLY £2 A YEAR PER PATIENT provides a first line drop-in clinic service for the 2,500 subsistence farmer families of the Kolbong area near Darjeeling, India. • Every penny raised for the project is given to the clinic • All the administration is carried out by volunteers • All the admin & travel costs are covered by the volunteers • All the visiting medics work as volunteers

TO DONATE
We need to raise a minimum of £5000 this year to keep up the stirling work of the clinic - our aim is for £8000 to enable us to fund more dental and hospital treatments.  We are of course nearly half way there with the fantastic fund-raising by Bernadette and the money we collect  from you very generous people who have set up a standing order for the clinic, so this means we need to raise a further £4,400. (Our apologies for not being a registered charity at the moment - we should meet the Charities Commission threshold for applying this year). If you would like to donate simply:

Send a cheque made payable to ‘Hill Tribe Health Centre’ to:
Karmi Farm Clinic Project
c/o Nomad
Unit 34 Redburn Industrial Estate
Woodall Road
Enfield, Middlesex
EN3 4LE

or email cathy@nomadtravel.co.uk for the clinic bank details if you would like to set up a standing order

Fundraising projects – please contact Cathy@nomadtravel.co.uk if you are interested in organising a fund raising event for Karmi Farm Clinic

TO DONATE MEDICAL SUPPLIES
Supplies of medical & first aid items which are very expensive or not available in Darjeeling are all donated from individuals and companies in the UK and delivered by guests and medical volunteers of Karmi Farm. Please contact cathy@nomadtravel.co.uk to find out what the clinic needs at the moment.

See the Karmi Farm Clinic project on the Stuff Your Rucksack website: http://stuffyourrucksack.com/charity.php?id=196

HOW DONATIONS ARE SPENT The Karmi Farm Clinic now costs £5000 per annum to maintain it.  This money is currently distributed as follows: • Medical & first aid supplies   58% • Full time health care worker   16% • Transport to & from hospital   8% • Hospital treatments (xrays, tests etc)  15% • Ancilliary supplies (cleaning,redecorating) 3% Any funds raised over and above £5000 will be used for hospital care and for serious cases.

KARMI FARM CLINIC MISSION The Clinic was established in 2001 by Cathy & Paul Goodyer, co founders of Nomad Travel Stores, in conjunction with Andrew Pulger-Frame, owner of the Karmi Farm Guest House, to deal with the influx of local farmers who regularly turn up at Karmi Farm with health problems. Located in N E India in the foothills of the Himalaya on the Sikkim border, the clinic caters for 2,500 people, mainly local subsistent farmers and their families. The nearest hospital is a 3-4 hour walk away and in most cases has little in the way of medical supplies or, sometimes, even medical staff. The Karmi Farm Clinic is run as a first stop clinic for these people. It frequently has to deal with accidents such as deep machete cuts, dead fall injuries, and other accidents relating to living off the land. In addition to accidents, the clinic deals with everyday problems such as scabies, diarrhoea, conjunctivitis and other infections associated with basic living conditions and water shortages. The aim of the clinic is to provide and sustain: • A first line medical clinic servicing a community who cannot  afford or are physically unable to make it to hospital • The best possible public health service on a patient by patient basis within the confines of severely limited capacity for intensive investigation or large scale public health programmes • To provide a health care resource sustainable by the local community for the local community • To provide first line emergency services and rapid evacuation • To provide support for chronic conditions requiring long term medication • To utilise the skills of temporary medics within a specified role

PROJECTS Following the success of our scabies eradication campaign over the last two years, the clinic has again supported many local families by supplying removable washable bedding and washing facilities. This has led to yet a further decrease in the number of scabies cases in an ever expanding area around the clinic.

This year we have funded trips for some of the ladies to take advantage of the sterilistion programme at the main hospital in Darjeeling. The Clinic follows through with post-surgical care. This is a continuing activity by the Government and so far the clinic has provided transport and after care for over 50 of the local ladies.

In conjunction with Professor Larry Goodyer of De Montford University and Dr’s Paul & Tripta Schur (all regular volunteers at the clinic), we are carrying out research into the high levels of hypertension in the area which is affecting a large number of younger men & women. Read the article here...

MEDICAL VOLUNTEERS

To keep up standards and offer a broader service, we have volunteer vacancies for medical professionals to come and give training at the clinic and  carry out diagnostics for the more complex cases. Any medical professionals wishing to experience life at the clinic first hand are given special rates at the Karmi Farm Guest House. If you are in a position to offer your time please email cathy@nomadtravel.co.uk.

Read what Emily & Tom had to say about their stay at Karmi as volunteers: 
'This is one of our favourite patients... a very brave 11year old boy called Ujal (he doesn't mind us showing these photos)....His case highlights the difficulties in working with the local healthcare system. Ujal is a local boy who lives with his parents and a brother a 30 min walk up the hill from the clinic. Its a difficult walk to his house up a slippery path (there is no road access). His family are poor - they work on the land and keep enough to sustain themselves and barter - but don't have money as such. He first came to the clinic with abdominal pain and was diagnosed as a potential appendicitis by the visiting doctor at the time.... .read more

Read what Dr Dean Jenkins observed as a guest at Karmi Farm:
'What amazed me most was not the monk who had nearly sliced off his palm with a Kukri that Tom stitched together on an improvised operating table in open air, or Clare using her dental skills in between painting to describe to Tom and Emily how to take out a tooth using a Leatherman multi-tool, or the house visits up extreme paths through the hills, or the copious amounts of "HIT Super Strong (for sale in Sikkim only)" being drunk by all the locals. No ... it was the fact that almost all the booking, follow-up arrangements, and advice was given over the mobile phone by Siroj the local worker who was clearly trusted by the clinic's community.....read more