Doctors have been forced to refer serious patients to other hospitals in the lack of ICU facility in the hospital that was established 46 years ago. Medical Superintendent Dr Keshav Bhurtel conceded that the lack of ICU has hit the poor people who cannot afford to go to private hospitals hard. “I have been forced to take my father, who has a hole in lung, here as I cannot afford to take him to private medical college,” rued Jhakhram Mahato of Madi. [break]
Around 600 patients visit the hospital daily but Dr Bhurtel said the lack of ICU has affected treatment of serious cases like accidents, and heart and lungs complications. The process of starting ICU service was initiated 10 months ago after much effort but it has not been implemented in the lack of doctors. Construction of physical infrastructure has been completed at a cost of Rs 10 million, including 2.5 million from the government, but the ICU has not come into operation yet. “Previously, there was no infrastructure for ICU and now we don´t have doctors,” said Dr Bhurtel.
He said the government has expressed inability to provide five senior surgeons required to run ICU and asked the hospital to arrange doctors on its own. “A recent meeting of the medical department discussed recruiting local doctors from Chitwan for the purpose but there has been no decision on how to manage them,” revealed Dr Amod Bahadur Thapa.
There are currently 25 doctors on government quotas and 12 recruited by the hospital to provide services in the 260-bed hospital. The hospital carries out up to 25 deliveries daily. This is the second highest number of deliveries any hospital carries out on a single day in the country, after the Maternity Hospital in Tripureshwar, Kathmandu.
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