GAIGHAT: Inmates of the district prison of Udayapur are deprived of health facilities due to lack of health staffers in the prison. According to the prison administration, their repeated requests to the central office for health workers had fallen in deaf ears.

"We have been facing a number of problems as we have to take the prisoners out of the facility for regular check-ups due to lack of health workers here," said jailer Krishna Prasad Paudel. He also claimed that the central office had done nothing even after he wrote for assistant health workers in the prison.

He informed that the districts prisons of Udayapur, Solukhumbu, Okhaldhunga and Khotang of Sagarmatha Zone were running without health workers in their facilities.

According to him, the yearly allocated amount of Rs 35,000 for the treatment of the inmates was not sufficient at all. "The money sent by the centre is only sufficient for three months," said jailer Paudel, adding that the jail had spent a total of two lakh rupees for the treatment of inmates this year.

"The prison owes a lot of money to different drug stores due to the insufficient budget for health facilities in the prison," added Paudel. There are 64 inmates in the prison including two women.