Chitwan, August 9

Confusion has now arisen regarding the management of the hospital and staffers appointed by the now-defunct committee.

The confusion erupted after the government decided to scrap all sorts of development committees across the country, ending the existence of the hospital development committee at Bharatpur Hospital.

The government through its Council of Ministers’ meeting on July 16 had decided to bring down the curtain on development committees across the country.

“The government can take such action. But, as it has done so without giving us any option, the same has created confusion,” said the hospital’s Medical Superintendent Dr Rabin Khadka, adding that they are waiting for instruction from higher-up on how to run the hospital.

“There is huge expenditure involved in running the hospital every day and we have to pay

salary to the staff too. But,

now we don’t know how, under which rule, we’re going to distribute the salary,” said the medical superintendent.

Meanwhile, despite the development committee being scrapped, manpower appointed by the same body is still at work in the hospital.

There are a total of 475 doctors and staffers who were appointed by the committee earlier.

Though, there are some 175 posts for government-appointed staff, only 137 are now working. The hospital is running with a total of 600 beds including 300 added by the erstwhile hospital development committee.

Hospital staffer Sanjaya Baral, who was also the central chairperson of the scrapped hospital development committee, observed that the government decision has affected some 20,000 staffers in 77 government hospitals in the country.

“No matter what, whether the hospital is kept under the central or provincial government or the local body, the development committee staff must be allowed to work under the committee,” the former chair of now-defunct committee reasoned.