The hospital -- where patients who suffer from anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse and so forth come for treatment -- is dilapidated and mismanaged apart from having smelly wards and stinking bathrooms.[break]
Finding five of the total 50 beds broken, one might wonder what would happen if few more patients were to be admitted. To make matters worse, attendant relatives of patients are seen occupying most of the beds.
“We lack the basic infrastructures and manpower,” said Director at the hospital Surendra Sherchan.
Doctors´ quarters, rooms for recreational activities, occupational therapy facility, training and research centers, kitchen and canteen are prerequisites that the hospital lacks. Apart from that, it also lacks modern equipments to treat patients.
Every year the government allots the hospital a budget of Rs 15 million to meet its expenses. The money gets spent on employees´ salary, while there is no fund to purchase medical equipments.
“We do not have Electro Encephalogram (EEG) while Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) equipment needs to be replaced by a better one,” Sherchan said.
Sherchan stressed on the need of clinical psychologists, and stated that no such quota has been conceptualized by the Ministry of Health. In order to cater to many psychological problems of the patients during the recovery periods, clinical psychologists are viewed to be an integral part of any mental hospital´s medical team.
The commonly held erroneous perception that the mentally ill is a lunatic has also contributed to government´s neglect of the hospital. Also, medical professionals are reluctant to be associated with the hospital.
“Though around three to six million people of the country´s total population face mental problems, the government has yet to prioritize the hospital´s development. It´s high time that government pay attention to mental patients and take this issue with gravity,” Sherchan said.
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