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SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake businessman's dream of building a hospital to help afflicted children is about to become reality in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Jim Webber, owner of Foothill Oriental Rugs, is still raising funds for the Nepal Cleft and Burn Center, but his ambitious project is nearly complete.
A Salt Lake warehouse operated by Globus Relief has already shipped enough medical supplies and equipment to Nepal to fill three semi trailer trucks. Dr. Shankar Rai is in Utah this week to arrange more shipments. "The need is immense," Rai said.
He leads a medical team in Nepal that treats children who are disfigured by cleft palates, or who have suffered burn injuries, typically by falling into a cooking fire.
"Almost all of these patients are very poor," Rai said. "There is no way they afford the service."
Webber has been helping the medical team financially for years as they provide surgical services free of charge. "I have a rug factory in Kathmandu, Nepal," Webber said. "I wanted to give something back to what's a really wonderful country."
Now, his dream hospital is taking shape and is expected to be ready to accept patients next spring. The new building is four stories high. It will have five operating rooms, 65 beds and a staff of 200, including about 20 doctors.
Children in Asia are about twice as likely as white American children to be born with cleft palates. Many charitable organizations provide surgical services in poorer countries, but typically it's done in portable, temporary facilities. Webber's goal is to make the Nepal Cleft and Burn Center a teaching hospital and a permanent facility for the kind of plastic surgery that can alter many lives in poor countries.
Webber began raising funds in 2006, hoping to persuade other rug importers to join his crusade. "It's been very disappointing," Webber said. "With the economic turn down, the rug business has not been good. And basically all my initial supporters who I recruited to start this project have dropped out."
But Webber pressed on, seeking financial grants and individual contributions. He's raised about $500,000 so far, mostly from Utah sources.
He said he's "getting a lot of bang for the buck" because of his arrangement with Globus Relief.
Globus Relief provides medical supplies and equipment, $100 million worth this year, to charities serving more than 100 countries. The equipment has typically been used previously by health care facilities which then either donate or sell it to Globus Relief at bargain prices.
"We can pick up used equipment," Webber said, "for pennies on the dollar."
Douglas Beck, director of operations for Globus Relief, pointed to a surgical table that's headed for Nepal. "This was a donated item. So we don't charge (Webber) for those particular items. We will then go through a reconditioning process where we'll completely take the table apart, do a cosmetic as well as a mechanical reconditioning."
Email:hollenhorst@ksl.com
