RUKUM: Villagers of far-flung village development committees of Rukum district have been hit hard due to lack of health services as health workers stationed in the health centres of the rural VDCs are not present in their designated areas.

Villagers are compelled to walk for days to the District Health Office in district headquarters Musikot for a regular check up. Some of the patients have died on the way to the district headquarters as they lacked basic health services in their villages.

Locals complained that health workers in health centres based in Kotjahari and Taksera were absent for the past 13 years.

“A peon is operating the Kotjahari health centre for the past 13 years,” a local Shyam Sundar Khadka said. Bhim Bahadur Chand, chief at Simrutu Health Post in Rangha has not attended his office for the past three months. Patients have no options but to walk for several days or face serious health consequences due to such negligence of health workers. The remote VDCs are at least seven days of walk from the district headquarters Musikot.

However, it takes ten days if we have to carry the patients, locals said. Though, there is a quota of four doctors in the district health office, only one doctor is working in the office.