Dr Kami Temba Sherpa of the remote Khunde Hospital in the Himalayas has concerns about the border opening after he contracted COVID-19 in December. When I developed pneumonia or my oxygen saturation was dropping down, I thought I was not going to make it, he tells Newshub.
He believes there s a high chance new strains of COVID-19 will come in with the mountaineers. People are working, walking, without any masks, there s no social distancing, there s no physical distancing. So yeah, we are worried.
The remote Khumbu region of the Himalayas is home to thousands of Sherpas, and the virus has made its way into the far reaches of those secluded mountains and valleys.
Braden Fastier/Stuff
Dr Rob Riley is retiring after 45 years of service and an “amazing” career of various disciplines in the medical arena.
Medical treatments and care have improved greatly since the 1970s, but a retiring Nelson GP says while there’s been leaps and bounds in his 45 years of service, there’s one thing he’s hoping to resurrect in his retirement. When Dr Rob Riley first became a doctor in 1973, technology for treating patients was in its infancy. Riley said asthma inhalers were only just rolling out, CT scans didn’t exist to quickly diagnose strokes and brain tumours, colonoscopies weren’t around to allow early detection of bowel cancer and the treatment for heart attacks was just medication where “survival was not often great”.