A team of volunteers from Honolulu-based Aloha Medical Mission recently performed more than 300 surgeries in Nepal while bringing one of the most vital tools to some of the country’s operating rooms: power.
During the trip to Dhankuta, Nepal, Aloha Medical Mission saw approximately 1,000 dental patients and successfully performed 179 major operations, including hysterectomies, hernia repairs and gallbladder removals. The group also performed 135 minor surgeries, such as removal of skin lesions like cysts, lipomas, foreign bodies and skin tags, and even repaired a tendon in a hand lacerated by a knife.
“We go to this town, take over this small hospital and set up our operating rooms and do surgery,” said Dr. Bradley Wong, president of Aloha Medical Mission.
Adding to the team’s mission of providing free health care, the group brought four suitcases, each carrying two solar panels. The We Care Solar Suitcases include two 20-watt solar panels, a sealed lead acid battery, a 15A charge controller, two headlamps, a phone charger, a AA/AAA battery charger, and a fetal Doppler, a tool to measure a baby’s heartbeat.
“The rooms were virtually pitch black, even in the daytime,” said Wong, describing the operating room without the solar suitcase. “The nurse pretty much uses a flashlight to take care of patients.”
In November, Wong and his team finished Aloha Medical Mission’s second solar installation in Nepal. They brought the first solar device to Lahan, Nepal, in 2012.
“It’s just by luck I stumbled across” the We Care Solar Suitcases, Wong said.
Since Wong became president six years ago, the team has delivered 10 solar suitcases to two countries — Nepal and the Philippines — in addition to the original objective of providing free health care services.
The We Care Solar Suitcases used by Aloha Medical Mission were invented by Dr. Laura Stachel and her husband, Hal Aronson, after Stachel witnessed how sporadic electricity impeded maternity and surgical care in northern Nigeria during a visit in 2008. The couple formed We Care Solar. As of November, the nonprofit has assembled and sent approximately 1,300 solar suitcases to 27 countries around the world.
In 2015, Aloha Medical Mission went on nine missions — four to the Philippines, two to Burma and one each to Bangladesh, Guatemala and Nepal. The team installed a total of five solar suitcases in 2015.
Aloha Medical Mission has delivered 10 of the suitcases in total since its first one in 2012.
“I’m pretty excited about this adjunct in addition to our surgical mission,” Wong said.
The nonprofit has been to 16 different countries since it was founded in 1983. This month, Aloha Medical Mission will travel to Cambodia and Honduras.
Wong said about 46 volunteers traveled from the U.S. to Nepal on the last mission. He listed plastic surgeons, gynecologists and dentists as well as lawyers as some members of the Aloha Medical Mission team. The team was joined by more than 30 local Nepali volunteers.
Some volunteers, who didn’t have the suitcase at hand during operations, had to operate with only headlamps.
Anita Bahl, a nurse in Honolulu, said one daily concern was the availability of electricity — the volunteers didn’t know what was going to happen because of rolling blackouts.
“When we first got there we would experience blackouts three or four times a day,” Bahl said. “Especially doing surgery it is kind of scary. You need light to operate.”
Bahl has joined Wong and the Aloha Medical Mission over the past several years on the mission trips.
“It reminds me why I became a nurse,” Bahl said.
Some days the team would work more than 12 hours, starting at 7 a.m. and working until 8 p.m, Bahl said.
There are some windows that let light in the operating room during the day. The team also was equipped with flashlights and headlights.
“We were stuck having to be at the mercy of the power that was available,” said Mike Yuen, a dentist in Honolulu. “You’re in the middle of oral surgery and have to do things with no light.”
Yuen said that he didn’t use the light provided by the solar suitcase when operating because the equipment was taken to other facilities with worse conditions.
“They took the suitcases where they were much, much more needed,” he said.
Yuen said he was lucky to have dental chairs, as he recalled previous operations where his patients were sitting in beach chairs while he worked on their teeth. Yuen said this time his patients had to spit into a box of cat litter, the litter helping to soak up everything.
Dr. Dean Sueda said even the facility where he worked, which had comparatively better conditions than the ones that received the solar suitcases, emphasized how helpful a solar installation would be. He said that when the lights went out during the rolling blackouts they would stay off for two to three minutes.
“We have our little headlamps on,” said Sueda, a pediatric dentist in Honolulu. “We didn’t have suction. We were not working in normal conditions. It just makes things much, much more difficult if you can’t see what you are operating on.”
Sueda said that despite the lack of suction and intermittent light, the five dentists removed 484 teeth in 10 days.
“We do what we got to do,” said Sueda.
