KATHMANDU, JULY 28
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has said the contribution made by Bir Hospital to health treatment in the country since its establishment till date, is unparalleled. Addressing a programme organised on the occasion of the 133rd anniversary of Bir Hospital here today, he said the hospital had been able to win the confidence of the general public by providing quality health services.
PM Deuba expressed the government's commitment to upgrade the hospital. "Hospital upgradation is at the centre of faith of the general public in the medical sector," he said. "I express my best wishes to this hospital, which remains the country's referral hospital due to the availability of skilled, experienced and dutiful health workers and doctors and other capable human resources, to carry out further qualitative treatment service delivery in the coming days," he said.
PM Deuba thanked health workers, doctors, among other human resources of the hospital for providing valuable service and support for the treatment of patients, be it during the 2015 Gorkha earthquake or the COVID-19 pandemic.
He congratulated the hospital for creating an enabling environment to provide international-standard service by increasing its capacity to 960 beds and establishing a separate identity in the national and international arena.
PM Deuba said, "My attention has been drawn to the fact that construction works at the hospital's extension in Duwakot of Bhaktapur have not yet started. I direct the ministry concerned to expedite work to this end with utmost priority."
On the occasion, he instructed the related bodies to allocate adequate budget for managing the required medical equipment, including ICU and ventilators, at the hospital which is frequented by the general public. He also urged the office-bearers of the National Academy of Medical Sciences to implement programmes that would boost the morale of human resources at the hospital to manage sufficient workforce.
He further said the government had allotted budget to the health sector with due priority in a bid to develop physical infrastructure and human resources, among others, as well as implement various programmes for that purpose.
Stating that the government was effortful towards achieving easy assessibility to health under the SDGs and providing treatment services to the general public, he said it was necessary for all the sectors to work in tandem in that connection.
PM Deuba expressed gratitude to Bir Hospital for providing affordable and accessible health services to patients from the underprivileged section of the population. He expressed happiness, saying Bir Hospital had expanded its services as per the need of the public by improving its services and technology. Pointing out the need to develop the capacity to fight against various types of epidemics and fully control COV- ID-19, PM Deuba urged the hospital management to make necessary arrangements so that even cancer patients could easily avail of treatment services.
He pointed out the need to expand capacity to provide health services to patients suffering from non-communicable diseases in the context of the WHO's forecast that non-communicable diseases rather than communicable ones would be the major health problems in the world in the future.
In this context, he stressed the need to effectively implement various programmes that would benefit the health sector in a bid to increase the number of healthy people in the country and reduce medical treatment expenses.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 29, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
