May 27: A day after his father’s demise, Aadarsh Mishra, a popular stand-up comedian from Jeetpur of Bara district, shared a video through his Youtube channel. “Dad is no more and National Medical College in Birgunj and Narayani Sub-regional Hospital are responsible for it,” he says in the video. Shortly after he shared the video, it hit the headlines in the country. People began to share his story and post it on their social media walls supporting and condoling him.

Binod Mishra, late father of Aadarsh, died on May 25 after failing to undergo dialysis at the Birgunj-based National Medical College (NMC). Binod Mishra was a kidney patient and was undergoing dialysis at NMC for the past four years. He was also a COVID-19 patient. But two weeks ago, when Aadarsh took his father to NMC for a dialysis, NMC refused to conduct dialysis of his father just because he was infected with COVID-19.

“The government has ordered the hospitals conducting dialysis to separate 20 percent of beds for COVID-19 patients but the NMC said that they don’t abide by the orders of the government and refused to conduct dialysis of my father,” Aadarsha said through a message to Republica.

He then contacted Narayani Sub-regional Hospital for his father’s dialysis. But to his surprise, the hospital said that it doesn’t conduct dialysis of patients from NMC.

The government has been providing Rs 3,500 per dialysis to the hospitals. 

However the NMC has a different story. According to the Managing director of NMC, Basruddin Ansari, NMC has been conducting dialysis of general patients and referring kidney patients infected with COVID-19 to Narayani Hospital for dialysis. “We are conducting dialysis in four to five shifts a day. Binod was in critical condition when his son brought him here. We then referred him to Narayani Hospital and to my knowledge, Binod underwent dialysis there,” he added.

“Nepal is a democratic nation and he has the right to make his opinion but this is the truth,” Ansari claimed.

Aadarsh taking to his twitter account said that he now wants to file a case against the government of Nepal because his father was not allowed a kidney transplant at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu a few years ago only because the donor --- his aunt (mother’s sister) --- was an Indian national.

As per the Human Body Organ Transplantation (Regulation and Prohibition) Act, 2055 (1998) “close relatives”, i.e the person’s son, daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, uncle, nephew, niece, grand-father, grand-mother from the father’s side, grandson, grand-daughter from the son’s side, grand-son, granddaughter from the daughter’s side, and includes husband, wife, adopted son, adopted daughter, step mother, step father, father in-law, mother-in-law, which relationship has constantly existed since two years ago can donate an organ for treatment of diseases.

Late Binod Mishra is just another kidney patient among thousands requiring dialysis to survive. While the entire globe is battling the COVID-19 pandemic, kidney patients have their own stories of struggle to tell.

 
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