Tanahun, April 21:

Lack of orthopaedic services has affected patients at the Damauli hospital.

The patients are forced to go to Pokhara, Kathmandu or Bharatpur for treatment or orthopaedic related complications, said Dr Subas Basnet at the hospital.

“Patients visiting the hospital are unaware that the hospital has no such service so we send them to referral centres from here,” he said.

So much so, the hospital is forced to ask peon Rama Thapa to operate the X-ray machine for lack of radiology assistant in the district. The post has remained vacant for the past four years in the hospital, it is reported. Only today, 12 patients got X-rayed, Dr Basnet said.

The hospital’s repeated request for appointment of a radiography assistant has gone unheard, said another physician at the hospital Dr Sushil Nath Pyakurel. “We are managing with a peon,” he said.

Meanwhile, the number of patients visiting the hospital with the cases of fever, typhoid, diarrhoea and jaundice has gone up since mid-April. Almost half of the 70-80 patients visiting the hospital daily are found to be suffering from these diseases, Dr Basnet said.