Kathmandu, August 16

Though the constitution and existing laws state that every citizen shall have equal access to health services, many people in the country are still deprived of basic health services.

According to the constitutional provisions, every citizen shall have the right to enjoy basic health services for free and no one shall be deprived of emergency health services. A report published by the Province 3 Office of the National Human Rights Commission said that the government had a provision of providing 70 types of medicines for various communicable and non-communicable diseases free of cost through district-based hospitals across the country, but the health facilities were found to be providing not more than 30 of such medicines during the monitoring conducted in fiscal 2018-19.

“Despite deputation of doctors at some primary health care facilities at local levels, they are virtually jobless for want of necessary tools and equipment to ensure full utilisation of their expertise,” it read. The NHRC also said health insurance schemes introduced by the government in some districts were ineffective. Health Insurance Act-2017, requires every Nepali citizen to get his/her health insured. Under the health insurance programme, the insured shall enjoy services like nutrition, yoga, psycho-social counselling, vaccination, family planning, safe motherhood, out-patient and emergency health services, operation, medicines, curative and preventive services, rehabilitation and ambulance service.

“All citizens are interested to get their health insured, but they are not able to enjoy health services at the hospital designated for treatment due to lack of required number of doctors, health  workers, essential medicines and equipment,” the report stated.

The NHRC said though cases of torture meted out to crime suspects by police were declining gradually, they had to be eliminated completely. According to the rights watchdog, it continued to receive the complaints of torture, misbehaviour and abuse in police custody. It urged the government to upgrade existing amenities in prisons and guarantee basic human rights, including sanitation, room space, quality food and regular health check-ups of inmates.

The government still uses torture as its weapon to force suspects to confess crime, claims the report. National and international laws consider torture as a crime. Therefore, it is illegal to torture a person on any pretext. NHRC stressed the need to upgrade amenities of the prisons and police custody rooms, and guarantee basic human rights, including sanitation, room space, quality food and regular health check-ups of the inmates.