Employees at Human Development and Community Services (HDCS), a non-government organization, had covertly taken the hospital´s equipment worth around Rs. 20 million some days ago to Bithad in Bajhang. [break]
Team Hospital, which was being run under HDCS as per a contract that has expired, is to be upgraded to a sub-regional hospital.
A five-member team of Dadeldhura police had confiscated the hospital equipments from Bithad in Bajhang in collaboration with local police.
Team hospital officials and locals allege that the employees of HDCS had stolen the hospital equipment. According to hospital officials, an endoscope machine, other expensive equipment used in operation theaters and medicines were stolen.
President of the hospital development committee Padam Raj Joshi alleged that HDCS had stolen the vital surgical equipment.
Karna Bahadur Gharti, in-charge at Bithad-based police station, informed that police had confiscated the hospital equipment from the house of a local trader, Jay Bahadur Bohora. All the equipment was found stored in a locked room of the house.
Bohora said the employees of HDCS had kept the equipment in his house, saying they were going to set up a new hospital in the area.
Meanwhile, locals at Bithad opposed the local authorities´ decision to hand back the recovered equipment to Team Hospital.
Local political parities have also alleged that HDCS has already made off with much precious equipment with the help of hospital employees.
A few weeks ago, police in Kailali district had seized medicines belonging to Team Hospital while being taken illegally to Kathmandu.
After hospital staff padlocked the hospital for the last seven days demanding job guarantes, theft has ben rife, reported an employee at the hospital. Hospital staff have taken to protests after the HDCS contract expired.
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