Where and what is Paray
Paray Hospital is a catholic mission hospital in the highlands of Lesotho. In the central district of Thaba Tseka you can find it easily, even on Google Earth. Thaba Tseka is the district main town and Paray is its mission place. The hospital itself looks like a village and is close to the center of Thaba Tseka. This wonderful place is surrounded by mountains and is located in the heart of this mountain kingdom.
Brief notes about the hospital
Paray Hospital serves the community of Thaba Tsekas district. At the hospital itself we find different wards and treatment units as in all rural hospitals. There is a mother-child care, a TB section as well as an ART center. Patients from far come to the outpatient department. Four medical doctors together with an international staff of nurses are engaged in treating the patients. Connected to the hospital is the Paray Mission Nursing School. Young students are offered complete nurse assistant training or the diploma nursing courses. For staff and professionals from other hospitals, special teaching events are held throughout the year on community level.
The physiotherapy Department
Paray Hospital has a small physiotherapy department. Small in size but big in activity. Among the staff are three nurse assistants trained in physiotherapy skills. In- and outpatients receive regular treatments and instructions for self-help. When necessary family members are taught applying physiotherapy in home-based care. Mothers with their disabled children are followed up regularely in assessment and instructions for the development of the child. In a two months period of the year the double qualified therapist Wolfgang Fasser joins the team for the clinical teaching in daily work and for the national study days in physiotherapy.
Our physiotherapy
25 years of clinical experience in applying physiotherapy in rural hospitals, in health centers and on community level helped us to formulate and promote a certain type of physiotherapy. We could call it „allround suitable“ physiotherapy. This means a safe and effective application of physiotherapy skills by trained people, using mainly human and natural resources. In areas where qualified physio-therapists are still missing the physiotherapy skills can be taught and offered to patients who can benefit of it. We developed typical treatment programs for common clinical conditions. Some of the specific physiotherapy matters were translated into our conditions.
On this website you will find many of these topics in the links „Library“ and “Video“. We would like to share our experience and appreciate comments from you, wherever you are. Living in a mountainous region, we enjoy a rich variety of traditional herbs. Some can be used safely to sustain physiotherapy treatments. Aloe vera jelly helps in the treatment of painful joints, steeping inhalations of wild mint is often used in respiratory physiotherapy and we produce our massage ointment with periperi powder, resin of the poplar-tree, sunflower oil and beeswax.
Newsletter
Our department publishes a newsletter, twice a year. We keep in contact In a simple way, people who come to study in our workshops and people who come from far away. If you wish to receive the newsletter by conventional post just send an e-mail to: info@wolfgangfasser.ch
You can downloads all the newsletters on the website, just click on „newsletters“.
Networking
The physiotherapy department of Paray Hospital offers a platform to discuss and develop safe and effective application of physiotherapy in rural hospitals, health centers and communities. Therefore we organize national and local workshops and publish our material. We reach out for cooperation with others in this field. Please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are grateful to a group of experienced physiotherapists and doctors who offer their expertise to us.
We thank you all for your interest and encouragement.