Biratnagar, August 11

As many as three ventilators instaled by the Ministry of Health at Koshi Zonal Hospital in Biratnagar last year are not in use, while doctors at the hospital are happy to refer patients seeking the facility elsewhere.

Regarding the non-use of the equipment, patients blamed the doctors, who they said were illegally outsourcing patients from the government hospital.

The hospital is said to have catered to only one patient with the facility ever since the ventilators were installed.

Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Roshan Pokharel, however, denied that the hospital had kept ventilators completely out of use.

“We lack of staff and there is less oxygen flow, private sector health facilities have better ventilators. Though we first recommend patients to private hospitals for better service, we treat them here only if the patients don’t want to go out,” he said.

Local Public Forum chair Uttam Dhungel put the blame squarely on unscrupulous doctors.“Ventilator is an important facility that a hospital must have but here since the senior doctors have also invested in private hospitals, they seem to be more eager to refer patients to their hospitals rather than treating them here,” he said.