The American Himalayan Foundation (AHF) has been the major supporter of the Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children (HRDC) for over three decades. HRDC is centered around a world-class, 100-bed, pediatric orthopedic hospital near Banepa, Nepal, a two-hour drive east of Kathmandu. HRDC’s network includes four satellite clinics, partner hospitals, and 76 community-based rehabilitation staff working across 25 of Nepal’s 75 districts. Since 1985, HRDC’s highly trained, compassionate, and dedicated staff have changed the lives of over 103,000 children with disabilities.

Poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance of the causes and available remedies for physical disabilities often mean treatment is not sought for children born with disabilities or who acquire them because of illness or accident. Add to this Nepal’s difficult terrain, poor road and public transport infrastructure, and very basic rural health services, and many families cannot access quality care for their children even if they want to. HRDC’s solution to this problem: “If they can’t come to us, we will go to them.” Annually, HRDC stages a dozen mobile medical camps over 120 clinic days, reaching some 6,000 children in remote villages throughout Nepal. Of these, 14% will be referred to HRDC’s medical facilities for follow-up surgery, physiotherapy, or the provision of assistive devices.

In 2019 and 2020, a grant from the Dorothea House Ross Foundation enabled HRDC to conduct an additional three mobile medical and rehabilitation camps, finding 538 children with previously untreated disabilities in remote villages across 12 districts. 117 were referred for surgery, 500 referred for physical therapy, and 134 provided with assistive devices. In addition, the camps allowed for the treatment of another 382 children already on HRDC’s radar. And beyond medical interventions, 1,540 local health workers, community leaders, and patients’ family members were orientated on disability identification and management, and (because the last series of camps was held in 2020) almost 600 people were given COVID-19 awareness training and received COVID protection kits. 

Amison, a five-year-old boy born with bilateral club feet, and Dhiraja, a seven-year-old girl with brittle bone disease, were just two of the hundreds of children the grant from DHRF helped HRDC find. Both had been unable to walk for most of their young lives, but the HRDC team was able to correct their deformities, teach them how to walk, enroll them in school, and place them in the care of one of their community-based rehabilitation staff who will be with them their entire childhood.