Recently, the government decided to release Rs. six million for prostate cancer treatment of former President Ram BaranYadav in the USA.

This is one of the most common cancers that can be easily treated in Nepal itself. Similarly, other leaders such as KP Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba and others have also gone abroad to have their health check-up that can be done within Nepal.

This has raised eyebrows of the Nepali citizens. Are the government health facilities available in Nepal inefficient? Are the Nepali doctors incapable of treating such common diseases? Or the leaders do not trust the Nepali doctors and health facilities available in the country.

If the leaders themselves do not trust the Nepali doctors why should the common Nepali people trust them? None of the political parties and top guns in politics wants to utilize the hospitals available in the country.

The Bir Hospital, the oldest one, for example, is a case in point. The hospital has the state-of the art facilities and has a special ward for VVIPs. But the special ward in the hospital has not been fully utilized as the affluent people, businessmen and the politicians who are supported by the government hardly attend the hospital for medical treatment.

If one easily gets million of rupees from the state coffers for medical treatment outside the country, who is going to choose the government hospitals for the same?

On the other hand, the government hospitals and educational centres have become inefficient because the high-profile people such as president and prime minister and ministers do not go there; the government does not provide enough budget for public health and is the least bothered about making these public institutions accountable to the people.

As a former president Yadav, who himself studied Medicine, has the right to get medical treatment, but not outside the country.

He should set an example by getting treatment at a government hospital.

How can we improve the quality of health facilities within the country if persons like Yadav, Oli and Deuba avoid the government hospital and always choose to go abroad for medical treatment, that, too, using the government funds?

Ashish Neupane, via e-mail

Not enough

Apropos of “Graft cases filed against govt officials” (THT, September 2, Page 2), simply filing graft cases is not enough to deter our die-hard corrupt government servants.

Misuse and abuse of government positions for personal benefit must be equated with crime against the State and humanity.

Such ‘criminals’ should not be let off with a few hundred thousand fines at the most. They deserve to be whipped in public, preferably in front of their near and dear ones and declared persona non grata.

The most corrupt are the land surveyors in Mid Western Nepal where the government is reverting to land measurement scale to metres from bighas and kathas.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu