Bajura, May 31 Bajura has been facing acute shortage of medical drugs for the last month, as drugs are yet to reach district-based government health facilities from the far-west regional medical store in Dhangadi. “Locals in Bajura haven’t had access even to over-the-counter drugs since mid-April,” said Tej Singh Sauda of District Health Office, Bajura. The government has been providing 70 types of drugs to the DHO, 58 to primary health centres, and 42 to different health posts. Drugs worth around Rs 8 million are provided to the district free of cost every year. However the demand is for drugs worth Rs 15 million. Health workers said that 20 to 25 types of drugs are yet to reach the health station. As many as 500 patients visit the 27 health facilities in Bajura daily. Health workers said patients are compelled to buy medicine from private drug stores when they are entitled to receive the drugs free of cost. Liquid medicine for children is particularly hard to get in Bajura. Assistant Health Worker in the DHO Dila Ram Bhatta said that the number of patients suffering from communicable diseases such as common cold, cough, diarrhoea, and typhoid, among others, has increased of late. Mina Padhya, a local of Badimalika Municipality, said she was prescribed drugs for treatment after a health check-up in the DHO, but she was asked to buy the medicine from a private drug store. Padhya said state the facility she was entitled to remained only on paper. Chief of Regional Medical Store Laxmi Kumar Shrestha said they had already dispatched the drugs meant for Bajura and it would reach health facilities in a few days.