COVID-19 – Nepal needs urgent help for medical staff

Dear friends of Chay Ya!

All over the world the motto now is: Doctors, nurses, rescue healthy – at the moment doctors and nurses are disappearing en masse from the few health facilities in Nepal for fear of COVID-19, because the government has taken far too few protective measures for them and is completely overwhelmed with the situation. Officially, there are only 3 people in Nepal who have fallen ill with Corona-Sars-Cov2, but nothing can be found that is not tested. Tests are too expensive, scarce goods and laboratories for evaluation are missing.

Due to the poor medical infrastructure, Nepal faces completely different problems than in our latitudes. Should the medical staff become infected and there is a large shortage of doctors and nurses, many of the people in Nepal will also die from other “more common” diseases. The Corona crisis will result in a completely different rat tail in Nepal than it does in our latitudes. At the moment protective suits, masks, glasses etc. are an absolute priority. Nepal is simply not prepared for such a crisis with only about 400 intensive care beds for 30 million people and is not able to cope with an outbreak on its own. (For comparison Austria has about 2,500 to 8.5 million). 

We must try with all means to keep the low infrastructure running and prevent the worst!

Therefore we try to import the needed material from China. Unfortunately, Nepal itself has neither the know-how nor the industry to produce it itself.

THIS IS NEEDED/IT IS TRIED TO BE ORGANIZED (after receipt it will be distributed to the big state hospitals nationwide):

  • PPE: 16.500€ (1000 pieces of Personal Protective Equipment, like suits etc.) – 16,50 € per piece
  • Masks: 8.000 € (5000 pieces with a respirator) – 1,60 € with a respirator
  • Transport PPE: €153
  • Transport masks: 763 €

TOTAL 25.416€

Imported from China, 8,5 € per kilo with UPS. We try to reduce this price with cargo, the first flight is on 31st March, but at the moment everything is uncertain.

So far we have 5.000 € (from the wonderful association Dautari e.V. from Germany) of these just under 26.000€ – in addition the customs has to be paid. We hope to receive this information soon, but the whole world is upside down and there is no improvement for the next weeks. Therefore we should react and order right away.

We hope and appeal for your support in this global crisis – for those who need it most and can only hope for help from outside!

Together we can do this – stay healthy!!!

the whole CHAY YA TEAM

Ps.: Our Obfrau Sabine Klotz and her little daughter Tara, as well as all our volunteers had to be evacuated and brought home after only 8 days on March 14th due to the uncertain situation in Nepal. Nevertheless, we all continue to work from here for a better future for the Nepalese people!

Scroll to Top