Medical Volunteer Opportunities | Public Health Program

Fact-Sheet

What has ViN achieved in Public Health and Medical Care Program by now?

22,883

Public Health Education

20,689

Medical Care

15,0008

T. Beneficiaries

39,304

WASH Campaigns (Public Health)

620

Health and Welbeing

66,500

Infrastructure Development for Public Health and Medical Care

Public Health Research

Why Public health and medical care Program?

What is Public Health?

Answering in the context of what is public Health and medical volunteer opportunities, Nepal is an underdeveloped country with over 25 % population living below the poverty line. It stands in 145th position on the Human Development Index having 70.7 years of life expectancy at birth. Twenty-nine percent of children under five are malnourished and maternal mortality per 100,000 live births is 190 (2013). Access to proper health and sanitation facilities is often very limited and awareness of correct hygiene practices is low. Every day, 16 million Nepali (around 50% of the population) practice open defecation because they have no toilets (Source: Nepal MDG Progress Report 2010) due to lack of sanitation facilities, while coverage among the poor is even lower at around 12%. About five & half (5.6) million people (20%) do not have access to clean drinking water in their communities.

Do we offer medical volunteer opportunities?

Ensuring access to health care and public health initiatives are big challenges in Nepal. The main institutions that delivered basic health services in 2016/17 were the 123 public hospitals, the 1,715 non-public health facilities, the 200 primary health care centers, and the 3,808 health posts. A recent study has stated that the patient-doctor ratio is 1,721:1 people and one nurse for every 500 people. However, the Doctor-patient ratio prescribed by the World Health Organization is 1:1000. This means in practice Nepal has now an acute shortage of doctors and medical professionals. So we offer medical volunteer opportunities to the aspirant.

The communities, we are working in are in poor situations. About 60% of households didn’t have safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in Jitpurphedi (2009) and 80% of households didn’t have safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in Taluwa, Thulachap and Bhadaure. The awareness of Health hygiene and sanitation was even less than that. The health posts in all areas are deprived of basic facilities and supplies. Though health is an important indicator in the human development index, in our communities it is less priority.

What’s the goal of Public health and medical care program?

Major Objective of public health and medical volunteer opportunities

The goal of Public health and medical care is to create healthy communities by controlling and preventing diseases and increasing people’s access to health, hygiene, and sanitation facilities and education.

Currently, we are implementing the project in five sites. Our goal is to create healthy communities which also supports the goal of the Ministry of Health and Population which is to improve the health status of all people living in the country through effective and efficient policy formulation, resource mobilization, monitoring, and regulation of delivery of health services by different health institutions.

We are contributing national sustainable development goals, SDG 3 – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages and SDG 6 – Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

How does VIN implement public health and medical?

We have five major programs on public health and medical volunteer opportunities.

Public health research,
public health education,
medical care,
school health,
Health care and wellbeing.

Public health and medical volunteer opportunities programs focus on preventing disease, prolonging life with a healthy lifestyle, and promoting health. VIN’s public health and medical care is an integrated program that has a complete dimension to create healthy communities. The program is implemented through organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities, and individuals. We work with beneficiaries at the grassroots level. We work with local groups. We always prioritize community participation. The projects are designed as a participatory. The contents are simple and in the local language. We provide medical volunteer opportunities for interested people.

1. Public health research

We develop projects based on research. Public health research is focused on health issues, risk factors, and people’s awareness and practices. This is done through the survey and cross-sectional study of health issues. The research is done by staff and volunteers. First, they identify issues, develop a concept, tools, and techniques, do field surveys, data entry, analysis, and report writing. We use public health research reports to disseminate information to concerned authorities, develop future projects, or act immediately. So far, we researched water sanitation and hygiene practices and availability of facilities, diarrheal diseases awareness and practices, communicable and non-communicable disease awareness and practice, etc.

2. Public health education

In the context of Nepal health awareness and practices level is significantly low. It is a pity in rural communities where education status is low. We organize trainings, workshops, and campaigns to increase public health awareness level. Our focus is to raise awareness levels and increase correct health practices. We can achieve this with education and behavior change communication. Public health education includes health hygiene and sanitation education promoting hand washing and toilet use, supporting to building of hygienic toilets and trash collecting bins, prevention of communicable and non-communicable diseases awareness campaigns, and first aid training. The program staff and volunteers develop content, posters, and leaflets and visit communities to organize educational events.

3. Medical care

Medical care focuses on providing quality clinical services through health centers and in the Community Health and Medical Care Volunteering in Nepal. Through this project, we support community clinics or health posts, health camps, and outreach medical campaigns. In this project, we treat or support to treat sick people. We take a history, do clinical examinations, advise for pathological or diagnostic procedures, and prescribe medicine. As we offer medical volunteer opportunities, Medical Volunteer Abroad Programs for Doctors will work with doctors or local medical staff, and support them by assisting in clinical examination and diagnosis. Volunteers assist in taking vitals (blood pressure, temperature, pulse, respiration rate, weight), examine patients to identify clinical signs or manifestations, and provide clues for differential diagnosis. We keep a record of all data and analyze the data to understand the health situation of the area and also deploy Volunteer Opportunities in Healthcare. These data are also important for health posts and national statistics. We recruit medical volunteer opportunities abroad to join us.

4. School Health

The school health project aims to improve the health status of children. Children of 3 to 15 years old get enrolled into the school. We conduct hygiene and sanitation education, nutrition, and health camps in schools. Our focus is to identify the common health problems of children and provide them with treatment. We organize participatory training, awareness campaigns, drama, case presentations, games, etc. These are designed for health information dissemination among children, parents, and teachers. Children, parents, and teachers are trained on correct hand washing and teeth brushing practices. We orient girls on menstruation and hygiene. We are organizing a school cleaning campaign. We do nutrition education campaigns. We conducted health camps to check health status and provide medicine to sick children. Our staff and volunteers visit schools and organize campaigns in classrooms and school premises. We organize educational campaigns time to time based on schools’ calendars and health camps at least two times in each school.

5. Health care and well-being

Health care and well-being focus on preventing illness and educating people about healthy lifestyles such as Exercise, Physicals, Yoga, and a Healthy diet. Women in our communities do more physical work. They suffer from physical pain, back pain, and joint pain. Many women are in domestic violence and mentally depressed conditions. We organize yoga and meditation for them. Every morning and evening about one hour they attend a yoga class. We advise people on a nutritious and balanced diet. Yoga instructors and volunteers go to a community to organize campaigns. We do general and therapeutic yoga or physical exercises for certain physical problems making it the best Medical Work Experience Volunteering Abroad In Nepal.

Besides these projects, we organize different global health days in our communities such as World Health Day, Hand Washing Day, World Food Day, blood donation, etc.