Retired doctor to visit projects funded by island’s overseas aid
A RETIRED Guernsey doctor has travelled to Nepal as part of a series of trips to visit projects funded by the Guernsey Overseas Aid & Development Commission.
Dr Nick Paluch is one of the GOADC commissioners and has always been keen to see how the money donated by Guernsey is benefitting communities.
Most projects funded by the GOADC focus on providing poor communities with clean drinking water, healthcare and education.
Dr Paluch always funds the trips from his own money.
He set off last week and said he had a busy winter ahead.
‘Between now and March I will be visiting eight Guernsey-linked aid projects in four different underdeveloped countries – namely Nepal, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Myanmar,’ he said.
‘Included in the schedule will be two new schools, two hospitals, a refugee camp, a remote village water project and two medical clinics, where I will be able to put my own medical skills to good use seeing patients and helping to train and mentor the local healthcare workers.’
This week Dr Paluch will be visiting the Anandaban Leprosy Hospital in Kathmandu, where he will see how Guernsey funds have helped create a bio-gas waste converter, a staff accommodation block and an earthquake-resistant ward for female patients
He will then visit a school, which was rebuilt using funds from the GOADC and the local ActionAid Guernsey support group. This will be followed by a trip to a hospital, which has applied for funding for an acute trauma unit and spinal rehabilitation centre.
‘I will be coming home briefly over Christmas but will then be heading off again in January to work at a Guernsey-sponsored floating medical clinic on the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia,’ he said.
‘One of the most important visits I will be making in the New Year will be to the Rohingya refugee camp at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
It is thought there are a staggering 850,000 refugees in the camp and the commission was quick to donate funds in the form of disaster relief when the crisis started in 2017.
‘This has provided emergency shelter and supplies as well as access to clean water and healthcare but many of the problems are ongoing and I think I am going to be shocked by the sheer scale of the camp and the suffering within it.’
In the New Year Dr Paluch will also be visiting projects in Cambodia and Myanmar.
