Nepalgunj, March 19

Health services at Bheri Zonal Hospital, Banke, have been badly affected due to lack of medical equipment essential for service delivery.

This is the only health facility that provides treatment for heart related diseases in the western region. But, available equipment at the hospital have become dysfunctional and are in need of repair. Eco-machine, a machine to x-ray the heart, has been collecting dust for want of repair for the past seven months.As a result, hundreds of patients are forced to visit private health services.

Many private health facilities overcharge patients. They have to pay more than Rs 2,000 for a report which just costs Rs 800 at government hospitals. Hospital administration has not yet taken any initiative to repair the machine purchased at a cost of Rs 8 million.

Likewise, a TMT machine at the hospital also has gone dysfunctional for a long time. “This is due to sheer carelessness on the part of the hospital administration. Patients, who come from far-flung areas, have been badly hit,” complained service seekers.

Former chair of the hospital development committee Bed Prasad Acharya argued that negligence on the part of the hospital development committee and hospital staffers was to be blamed for failure to deliver quality services. “Actually, it is the responsibility of the development committee to upgrade services of the health facility and develop necessary infrastructure, but the incumbent office bearers of the committee are irresponsible. Hundreds of patients have been deprived of quality service due to lack of medical equipment,” said Acharya.

However, medical superintendent of the hospital Dr Bir Bahadur Chand claimed that the services of the health facilities were gradually improving of late. “It is true that the health facility has been facing a hard time for want of human resource and infrastructure, but the situation has not deteriorated the way it has been rumoured. We hired technicians to repair the machines but they could not repair them,” he said, denying negligence on part of the hospital administration.