Kathmandu, July 3

Bir Hospital has discontinued surgical treatment of cardiovascular diseases and services related to it due to lack of resources and technology.

Earlier, it had been delivering various services to patients suffering from the disease. “Lack of various resources and technology in the hospital has rendered us unable to provide cardiovascular service,” said Dr Kadar Century, the hospital’s Chief Consultant Medical Generalist. “We, these days, refer our cardiovascular patients to Shahid Gangalal National Heart Centre rather than diagnose the disease in this hospital,” he said.

Due to lack of budget to acquire technology needed for cardiovascular surgery, and other physical infrastructure and concerned human resources, the hospital has stopped the service. “Simple heart related problems are diagnosed, but we are unable to provide surgical service and this has created problems for patients”, he said. There are only four doctors in the hospital that look after cardiovascular diseases. Many doctors retired and currently the hospital doesn’t have permanent young doctors and staff.

“Being the oldest hospital, it should be able to provide all the facilities. The government should increase the budget of the hospital, along with appointing related staff so that we can run the heart surgery and critical operations of cardiovascular diseases again,” said Dr Century.