Nepal a new challenge for paramedics (The West Australian)

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Paramedics will swap the streets and hospitals of Perth for the steep hills and poverty of Nepal when they travel there this month to use their medical skills to help deprived communities.

Three St John Ambulance paramedics and three student paramedics are giving their time to help Backpacker Medics, a Perth charity which has taken 25 volunteers to Nepal over the past two years.

The latest group of volunteers will work from a medical clinic, which opened in June with funds and donations raised mostly in WA, to help Nepalese villagers in a remote part of the country where healthcare is non-existent.

It will be a unique introduction to paramedical science for Brenton Stewart, Ben Sibley and Rod Miller-Tait, who are first-year students at Edith Cowan University. “I just want to help out,” Mr Stewart said.

“We’ve got everything we need. It’s good to give something back to others.”

The two-week stint in Nepal will also be a challenge for the three experienced paramedics who are used to working with more medical equipment and supplies.

Alisha Reibel, who has been a paramedic for three years, said the experience would be a huge education.

“It will be a challenge,” she said.

“We are going to be a bit limited with supplies, so it’s going to be a different way of working.”

Student Emma Sparkman volunteered in June and will return in February for a month.

Backpacker Medics founder Nathan Burns said volunteers’ work had an impact beyond medical outcomes.

For more information, go to www.backpackermedics. com.

It will be a challenge. We are going to be a bit limited with supplies. “Paramedic Alisha Reibel