Lalitpur, October 25:

The Vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers Kirti Nidhi Bista today laid the foundation stone of a maternity ward block at the Patan Hospital, which is being funded by the Simons family of New York City in memory of their son, Nick Simons. The construction is scheduled to be completed in two years.

“With the increase in the population, education and health services also need to be increased,” Bista said during a function held here to mark the occasion.

The Simons family of New York City have agreed to provide $ 2 million for the new hospital wing that will consist of a 140-bed obstetrics/gynaecology (Ob/Gynae) annex and a nursery.

According to Dr Mark Zimmerman, the medical director at Patan Hospital, the new wing will also provide added rooms for medicine and surgery wards. The number of beds in both the surgical and medical wards will be doubled from the current 42 and 45 beds in each ward, respectively.

“The hospital will see 25 new births each day after the construction of the new maternity ward,” Dr Zimmerman said.

Dr Zimmerman told this daily that Patan Hospital was launching another project in the next two months - the Nick Simons Institute.

Jim Simons of the donor family said the new wing was a small contribution of the family towards fulfilling Nick’s dream of serving the people of Nepal. “Losing somebody dear to you gives you the insight to help others in need,” Simons said.

“We discussed various ideas to support the people of Nepal. We were impressed with the management of Patan hospital only after a few visits,” Simons said: “So we agreed to fund a maternity wing for the hospital as we felt it would serve the needy people the best.”

Nikshya SJB Rana, assistant minister for Health and Population, said the American family’s financial assistance to a new maternity ward would help the government provide affordable services to the poor people.

The hospital provided around Rs 1 crore worth of free services for the needy in the last year alone. “Patan hospital is a good example of self-reliance,” Rana said.