Mountaineering professor puts Sherpas under occupational health spotlight

As tough jobs go, guiding tourists up and down the dangerous peaks of Mount Everest and the surrounding Himalayas must be high up the list. However, there has been little research on the occupational health of the Nepalese Sherpas that make a living scaling the world's tallest mountains on a regular basis. Now the health effects of this strenuous and dangerous job have been thrown into sharp relief thanks to Professor Ewan Macdonald of the University of Glasgow who decided to do some investigations while on a climbing trip to Island Peak and Ama Dablam in Eastern Nepal to celebrate his birthday. The results showed that respiratory, musculo-skeletal and eye symptoms are common - and one in four Sherpas had been involved in accidents. The researchers hope the findings will help promote better healthcare provision for Sherpas. Sherpas are a people of the Himalayas who frequently put their life on the line for visiting climbers by breaking trails, fixing ropes, carrying enormous loads, putting up tents, feeding and protecting often unfit foreign climbers. The study came about when Prof Ewan Macdonald, an occupational physician, researcher and Head of the Healthy Working Lives Group at the Institute of Health & Wellbeing and keen climber, found that there had been no previous studies concerning the occupational health of Sherpas and so decided to conduct his own.