Everest ER

The Everest ER is a seasonal tent-based medical clinic at the Everest base camp (17, 600 ft, 5, 400 m) founded in 2003 by Dr. Luanne Freer, a volunteer physician for the nonprofit Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) in Nepal and Associate Medical Director of Medcor, Inc. Volunteer doctors provide altitude-experienced health care and preventative education to the climbing community, their support staff and trekking-through public in base camp, using proceeds from this care to subsidize free/low cost health care for the Sherpa people of the Khumbu region of Nepal. Staffed by volunteer physicians from all over the world, the ER works to stabilize patients for evacuation and descent or, in many cases, to definitively treat the illness or injury. Ninety percent of Everest ER patients are climbers or their support staff; the remaining 10% are trekkers-through or media and just over half of the patients every year are native Nepali. In 2018, Sherpas and locals comprised more than 60% of the clinic's patients. A retrospective analysis of the clinic's records from 2003 to 2012 identified medical causes such as high altitude cough and upper respiratory infections for 85.3% of the cases. The other 14% were trauma, primarily frostbite and lacerations. According to Peter Hackett, a high-altitude physician, treating altitude illnesses on site at Everest ER reduces helicopter evacuations. Everes

Hospital data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).