Dr. Sarang Chitale

The speaker on Tuesday 16^th November was Dr Sarang Chitale, a Consultant Rheumatologist at Ysbyty Gwynedd, who was introduced by Past President Ashok Harshey’

Sarang had chosen not to speak about his speciality but had entitled his address ‘20 enlightening days in the Himalayas’. In it he described his experience as  a ‘trek doctor’ on an Indian Adventure Trek to the Himalayan region in 1997. Everything was free for him but there was no remuneration.

He was at the time a young doctor and he was responsible for the health welfare of the trekkers, a similar sort of  a role as GP. There was of course no immediate backup support He dealt with 10 cases during his 20 days There was broken leg and fortunately the helicopter only took 2 hours to arrive. 5 were minor ailments but the rest were altitude (mountain ) sickness cases which affects individuals above 8,000ft.  One of these was a Pulmonary Oedema a much more severe case. There is no substitute for  altitude sickness but acclimatisation at a lower altitude.

The vote of thanks was given by Ian Trevette