Nepal 2025 project report
03 November 2025
In March 2025, BSSH returned to Nepal. This year, the team (mainly funded by BFIRST) consisted of:
- Sarah Tucker (consultant plastic surgeon and project lead)
- David Izadi (consultant plastic surgeon)
- Conrad Harrison (plastic surgery registrar)
- Yanni Tse (senior hand therapist)
- Anychia Ramracheya (senior hand therapist)
We were delighted to be joined by our hand therapy colleagues for the first time this year – this allowed us to address some critical areas of unmet need and build on our working relationships with local physiotherapy and occupational therapy teams.
We visited four teams across two cities. In Pokhara, a beautiful lakeside city nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, we visited our dear friend and colleague Dr Suraj Maharajan and his team at Green Pastures Hospital. Green Pastures is a small hospital that cares for patients with long-term conditions including paralysis and disabling burns scars. We were able to share common hand therapy protocols with the team and support Dr Suraj in some complex surgeries. Also in Pokhara, we visited surgeons and senior leaders at the busy Gandaki Western Regional Hospital, where we discussed collaborative working, established ties to their therapy department, and delivered lectures on orthoplastic reconstruction, clinical research, and hand therapy.
In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city, we met the team at Kirtipur Hospital (a national cleft and burns centre, long partnered with BFIRST). While we now have little to offer the highly skilled surgeons at Kirtipur, we were excited to explore the possibility of hosting international fellows at Kirtipur in future years. The team are particularly well-positioned to teach burns, cleft, hand and microsurgery to fellows visiting from low-middle income countries. The Kirtipur team expressed gratitude for surgical and therapy teaching sessions that we put on during our time there.
We were then able to spend more time with Dr Shilu Shrestha at the National Trauma Centre, Kathmandu. We delivered a whole day of teaching on hand surgery, therapy, research and quality improvement infrastructure, and orthoplastic principals. Our focuses here were on:
- Preventing avoidable hand stiffness – our hand therapists were able to deliver teaching and care across two hospital sites, and with the help of some visiting medical students we have started a system for routine data capture that will help the team to target future service improvements.
- Orthoplastic reconstruction – we were able to support the team through some complex surgeries and lay foundations for future expansion in this area.
As always, we will be staying in contact with our colleagues in Nepal throughout the year and cannot wait to visit again in 2026!
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