ARJUN POUDEL
Public hospitals refer patients to private centers from emergencies
KATHMANDU, Aug 9 : Sita Mahat of Thoparka, Sindhupalchowk has been lying in a bed at Bir Hospital for the last two weeks.
As with other patients, the hospital administration has already asked her to go to other hospitals for treatment because the agitating resident doctors have refused to see patients. But Mahat pleaded the doctors to let her die there instead because she cannot afford the treatment at other hospitals.
Mahat, 53, a patient of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), said that her husband, who works as a construction laborer in the capital, brings some food for her in the evening, which has kept her alive so far. Mahat, who is lodged in the emergency ward of the hospital, complained that doctors at the hospital have been asking her to vacate the bed immediately and have stopped examining.
Pedestrians reading banners put up by protesting resident doctors of the Bir Hospital in this August 1 photo. With the doctors’ protest entering its third week, services at the country’s major referral center have been seriously affected.(Dipesh Shrestha/Republica)
There are four other patients in the ward who cannot afford treatment at private centers and have been occupying the beds out of sheer helplessness.
With the resident doctors perusing MD/MS degree under the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS) staying away from services for the last two weeks, the patients are being asked to go to other hospitals. The hospital administration has even been turning away critical patients from the emergency.
“Most of the departments have stopped admitting patients, so we are compelled to send patients out of the hospital,” said Dr Nhuchheman Dongol, chief of the Emergency Department at the hospital.
“Some poor patients who cannot afford treatment at other hospital have returned home, while some who are in serious conditions have refused to leave the hospital´s emergency,” Dongol informed.
He acknowledged that the hospital mainly gets poor patients who come from far flung areas and cannot pay for costly treatments at private centers.
He said the doctors at the hospital´s emergency just provide primary care after which the patients have to be transferred to other departments for thorough examination and treatment.
Just as at the Bir Hospital, the administration at the Kanti Children Hospital, which is the only government-run children hospital in the country, too, has been turning back patients.
Doctors at the hospital said that 26 resident doctors have shunned services as a show of support to the protests by their peers at the Bir Hospital.
“It has been very difficult to provide care to the patients. We are struggling to run even the emergency and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital,” Dr Ganesh Rai, acting director at the hospital, said. He said that the hospital has been admitting only critical patients.
Demanding sweeping reforms at Bir, including acquiring essential equipments, about 300 resident doctors have been staying away from services for the last two weeks.
Thousands of patients at all major public hospitals in the capital have been severely affected following the protests. Services have been disrupted at Bir, Patan Hospital, Maternity Hospital in Thapathali, Kanti Children´s Hospital, Sahid Gangalal National Heart Center, Nepal Mental Hospital, Tilganga Eye Hospital, the Army Hospital and Bharatpur Cancer Hospital in Chitwan, all of whom are allied to the NAMS.
Agitating doctors said that they were compelled to agitate, as the authorities concerned keep turning a deaf ear to their just demands.
They said that the hospital itself has been ailing for years now, because of which hundreds of thousands of poor patients have been suffering and are compelled to seek services at comparatively far more expensive of private hospitals.