Health help-desk for foreign employment seekers soon

Kathmandu, July 13:

The Nepal Health Professional Federation will establish a National Health Help Desk on August 17 to provide prospective foreign employees with medical care facilities and information.

The desk will help foreign employees, who have been sent back from foreign countries for being medically unfit, or prospective employees in need of a check-up.

The federation plans to manage the health check-ups in a transparent and scientific way, and make foreign employees aware of unauthorised activities. “The setting up of this desk will protect foreign job aspirants from being duped,” said Khadga Bahadur Shrestha, president of the NHPF.

The federation plans to ensure quality service and prevent cheating by using hologram stickers in the health certification reports. “The help desk will go a long way in making the health check-up transparent,” said Nur Bhandari, first vice-president of the NHPF.

Uma Kanta Parajuli, vice-secretary of the foreign ministry, accused international manpower agencies of not discharging their responsibilities once Nepali workers left the airport. He also blamed them of not making the workers aware of the rules and regulations prevalent in the country of migration. He said the agencies never tried to rescue workers in trouble.

However, Dr Tribhuvan Prasad Rajbhandari of the National Public Health Laboratory accused the NHPF of trying to establish the desk without clear vision. He said out of 161 medical centres , only 80 had fulfilled the criteria for the foreign worker health check-ups, and the rest were using poor quality medical products.