If targets are to be believed, the time for the achieving the Millennium Development Goals are just around the corner. 2015 is not many years away, yet the pace for the stated objectives is nowhere evident except for the budgetary allocations and the various commitments made from time to time but not to be realised. In this connection, the health sector is seeing anomalies that is but unimaginable. There have been regular news reports that talk of health delivery facilities like the health posts and centres lacking the health personnel needed to provide basic health care services to the people. This is especially true in the remote village development committees like a recent news report points that the absence of the health workers in the health centres in Kotjhari and Takasera in Rukum district of the Far Western Development Region has been a continuing story for the past 13 years. And the peon has been the health care provider for that many years. This is but a reminder of the fallacious picture that is presented in Health Ministry progress reports. The budgetary

allocation may be a point of complaint, but it is the delivery mechanism that is at fault.

Coming to more recent times, the past government had hyped its approach to the health services delivery. More than anything, the health facilities have come to be urban centred, and that too particularly in the Kathmandu valley. This lopsided health reach has denied the rural folks of the sophisticated health facilities that they are in need of. Moreover, the slogan “health for all” has only been misleading with the government and its line agencies missing out on many fronts. The preparedness level to deal with epidemics like bird and swine flu cannot come in for praise. Similarly, the water borne diseases take their toll every year. If only the health delivery machinery had been efficient with adequate investment, infant and maternal mortality rate would have come down heavily. Similar is the case with other non-communicable diseases like those of the heart, lungs and so on.

It is true that the budget for 2008/2009 promised Rs. 15.89 billion but the lackadaisical style of functioning of the health ministry has been responsible for no visible change being seen in the health care services all over the country. The bright lining had been the free maternity services that was initiated a little over four months back. It was a commendable gesture. Despite a new government, a sudden spurt in people-oriented health services cannot be expected at this hour because of the intricacies that is already evident from the delay taking place in the formation of the full-fledged cabinet. Despite all that, the need is there for making the primary and basic health facilities fully equipped both with equipment and medicines, and health personnel. Without upgrading the health services, the basic requirement of the people will be incomplete. If immediate attention is not given to the health sector, the commitments in this regard for the achievement of the MDGs will merely be hypocrisy that is tantamount to playing pranks with the health of the citizens.

The lopsided health reach has denied the rural folks of the sophisticated health facilities