Vertical Solutions? The Politics of Air Ambulances and Maternal Survival in Nepal

Name: Vertical Solutions? The Politics of Air Ambulances and Maternal Survival in Nepal
Start: 2026-05-28T15:00:00+05:45
End: 2026-05-28T16:30:00+05:45
Location: Post Box 13470, 27 Jeet Jung Marg Thapathali, Kathmandu, Nepal 44600

Schedule

Thu May 28 2026 at 03:00 pm to 04:30 pm

UTC+05:45

Location

Post Box 13470, 27 Jeet Jung Marg Thapathali, Kathmandu, Nepal 44600 | Kathmandu, BA

Additional Research Seminar
(Jointly Organized by Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies-Kathmandu Center (ANHS-KC) and Martin Chautari)
Title:
Vertical Solutions? The Politics of Air Ambulances and Maternal Survival in Nepal
Speaker:
Jan Brunson, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Date, Time and Venue:
28 May 2026/१४ जेठ २०८३ (बिहीबार, दिउँसो ३ बजे)
Martin Chautari Seminar Hall, Thapathali, Kathmandu
LIVE:
https://www.youtube.com/@MChautari
Abstract:
In tandem with national efforts to develop a system of pre-hospital care via ground ambulance services, leading private hospitals in Nepal are competing to institute air ambulances, or helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS). In a nation with limited infrastructure and extreme geography, helicopters offer a high-tech solution to overcoming transportation delays in emergency medicine. Private HEMS, due to the exorbitant costs, invites intersectional analysis along the lines of how wealth, caste or ethnicity, gender, and remoteness shape who is able to utilize it. In contrast, the launch of a governmental program devoted to transporting rural obstetric emergency patients to hospitals, using army helicopters, stands out as an unexpected transformation of a status quo in which only wealthy, elite individuals could access such medical care. Through a review of the trends in maternal mortality and ethnographic field research with doctors in Kathmandu and Kavrepalanchok who are leading the development of emergency medical transport, we will explore competing interpretations of the driving forces and implications of HEMS, analyzing the benefits and drawbacks to targeting the vulnerable in health interventions.
About the Speaker:
Jan Brunson is an anthropologist of global health discourses on population, maternal health, and reproduction. Her ethnographic research in Nepal on reproductive agency, women’s access to healthcare, and population politics spans two decades. Her first book, Planning Families in Nepal: Global and Local Projects of Reproduction (2016, Rutgers University Press), offers an intersectional account of Hindu Nepali women and their sons as they faced conflicting global and local ideals regarding reproduction and family. For her most recent project, she explored perceptions of cesarean sections as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Nepal 2024-25. Brunson is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.