According to Medical Superintendent at the hospital Dr Tarun Poudel, the hospital has developed physical infrastructure but it still needs to overcome without delay the insufficient number of doctors and specialists and lack of medical equipment.[break]
“Though the hospital has posts for 12 medical specialists, only three are working there currently,” said Dr Poudel. As for general practice doctors, there are six at the hospital, which has posts for 10 of them.
Dr Poudel said that most of the doctors posted to the zonal hospital pocket their monthly salaries without coming to work. Recalling some examples, he said, “ Anesthetist Dr Abhaya Pokharel was here only for a week, and Dr Homnath Neupane, a child specialist, has been working at the Western Regional Hospital for the last five years although he is officially posted here.”
Essential wards like an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and a well-managed operation theatre, and equipment for anesthetics and heart beat monitoring and stand lights for the delivery room need to be added, informed Dr Poudel.
Chairman of Dhaulagiri Zonal Hospital Krishna KC, however, said that in previous years the hospital was in even worse condition. “We didn´t even have an ambulance,” KC said. “But now the hospital is complete in terms of physical infrastructure but the shortage of doctors and medical apparatus is a big problem,” he added.
Dhaulagiri Zonal Hospital regularly gets around 200 patients coming from various districts like Baglung, Mustang, Magdi and Parbat. “We have no alternative but to refer the critical cases to hospitals in Pokhara and Kathmandu,” said Senior Staff Nurse Janaki KC.
According to a taskforce led by Dr Poudel, the hospital will need Rs 62.5 million to purchase all the essential medical equipment.
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