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One Saturday we went to a nearby village populated by a caste of people known as Tamangs. It was one hour’s walk away, situated in a serene hillside setting with neat rows of terraced fields and picturesque terracotta cottages. This scene was less than idyllic close up, though, as the people who lived there were extremely poor and had little education. We went from house to house spreading the word that I was consulting at the health post, and dispensing any required medications.

Mobile medicine

 Checking a wound on child’s ear in Tamang village

We came across a young mother with her one-month-old baby. She told us everything was fine, and the babe appeared to be sleeping quite peacefully. Two days later the mother brought the baby, Puja, to see me. She said Puja was not feeding well and had turned “wrinkly”. I took one look at the tiny, grey, dehydrated and incredibly weak baby in front of me, and directed her to the nearest hospital for immediate rehydration. We tried to stress that this was a dire case, so I hope that they did go and that little Puja made it. She had weighed only 2kg at birth, and over the past month had put on only 100g. Her mother was eighteen years old.

I have heard that infant mortality is very high in Nepal, and most babies are born without any trained staff attending. I suspect that there is also little in the way of antenatal or postnatal care here. Seeing Puja almost broke my heart. We take so much for granted in Australia – a baby weighing 2kg would never have been allowed to go home straight away, and perhaps with good antenatal care and good nutrition, babies would be unlikely to be born at 2kg (very low birth weight) anyway.

I never did find out what happened to her, despite asking around. Nobody seemed to know.