Irate over the admission of more than three dozen staff through personal connections and without any competition, the employees union at the hospital had pleaded with Parsa District Administration Office (DAO) on February 27 for necessary investigations.
According to Beni Madhav Gyawali, Chief District Officer (CDO) of Parsa, all the complaints that have reached the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), the Regional Administration Office at Hetauda and the Ministry of Population and Environment (MOPE) will be looked into individually.[break]
"We have designated someone from DAO to lead the investigation into the burning issue and Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Population Prabin Mishra, who visited Birgunj on Saturday, has also commented that the matter should be taken seriously," said Gyawali.
In the past month, Medical Superintendent Dr Akhilesh Prasad Singh and chief of the hospital development committee Babu Lal Yadab recruited 42 new employees, all of them through political influence and personal connections, informed Dr Manoj Gupta, chairperson of the employees union.
With repeated illegal admissions after the appointment of every new medical superintendent and development committee chief at the hospital, the employees, who were forcibly replaced, filed a case at the CIAA on August 25.
Following that move, CIAA approached the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) to take necessary action as the ministry had strongly prohibited the hospital from taking on more employees than the required quota.
"The ministry had directed the hospital to accept new enrollment only after consulting them and the law also states that staff recruitment should first be the subject of public notification. But the committee at the hospital paid no heed. They took in 38 employees without considering all the required rules and regulations," said Gupta.
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