Team: Asad Parvaiz (Wolverhampton UK), Atiqur Rehman (Dudley Uk), Leo Mitterreger (Vienna Austria)
Dates: 23-27 Mar 2015
Total operations: 78
All praise to the organisers of this trip that everything went brilliantly smooth. Being on my first mission with Hernia International, I landed in Bewal with great apprehension. Hosts (Atiqur Rehman & family) were great in looking after us, from accommodating us in their luxury mansion, providing us with delicious feasts to giving us pick-n-drop everyday. Bewal is a small but rich town with great traditions, people like to wear silwar kameez. Most people have a relative working in Uk. They like to sit and talk about anything to everything. I loved potohari accent, although Leo seemed to miss on that.
Bewal International Hospital is built to a great standard. The staff worked efficiently and tirelessly helping with the mission. Our daily routine included home cooked breakfast, followed by quick ride to hospital. Patients were lined up to be seen and categorised. We performed a range of procedures, in 2 to 82 year old patients, under GA/spinal/local anaesthetic. This included a laparotomy for incisional hernia. Post graduate trainees from Rawalpindi attended daily to assist and learn. Towards the end of everyday, patients were reviewed, and this is when I found the priceless satisfaction, gratitude and thankfulness on the faces of patients & their relatives. Every day ended with tasty multi-dish dinner.
A ceremony was held on the last day of the week, where community leaders also joined in, celebrating the end of a very successful Hernia mission, hoping to have more every year!
Asad Parvaiz
Some of my extremely positive impressions of “Mission Hernia 2015 in Pakistan“:
Atiq himself picked me up from the airport and I was offered luxurious accomodation in his uncle`s house in Bewal. The following days we didn`t have to walk the distance to the hospital but were taken there by car. In hospital we did our morning ward round and checked the patients, and operated all day. In totall we operated on 64 patients doing nearly 90 interventions because there were sometimes both sides ( inguinal) to operate. My medical presents were highly welcome (sutures, swabs, local anaesthesia, tablets against pain,…) and therefore at the evening ward round we were able to give some “pain killers” to the operated patients.
The food we got was local (spicy) and excellent and I enjoyed it a lot. The following “sightseeing week” was also great as I had a very competent guide (rented car with driver) who showed me interesting and marvellous places, among others the UNESCO world heritage “Taxila”. We also made a trip twice to the Margalla hills as well as to the highest village in the region ( 2300m) called “Murree”. On our last day we visited “Centaurus”, the biggest shopping center in Islamabad. As i have allready mentioned this was a very impressive stay for me full of experience. The Pakistani people were very friendly and pleased to meet a European and they offered their help whereever they could.
Leo Mitteregger