Accidents happen. On March 11—the day before the US-Bangla aircraft crashed at the TIA killing 51 people, including 22 Nepali nationals—a Turkish plane had crashed in Iran; all 11 on board died. On the same day, a sightseeing helicopter crashed in New York (five dead). Even on the day of the US-Bangla crash at the TIA, another small private airplane had crashed in Chicago (no casualty).

But all aviation-related accidents have a cause. For a modern aircraft with all its safety equipment to crash, something, somewhere should be badly amiss. A commercial passenger jet, like the one that came down at the TIA on March 12, is particularly tailored to deal with any kind of on-air emergency.

From what has emerged about the TIA crash in the media thus far, a few things become instantly clear. There was a clear gap in communication between the air traffic controllers (ATCs) at the TIA and the US-Ban­gla pilots. It appears that the two pilots were confused about the exact approach of landing. This is surprising as the aircraft’s captain was said to be experienced in landing at the TIA. Perhaps he was tired and disorient­ed: reportedly, the Dhaka-Kathmandu flight was the captain’s fifth of the day.

The air traffic controllers, for their part, appeared incoherent and failed to give clear instructions to the aircraft on how to proceed with the landing. But, as our main story this week clarifies, the final decision on landing the plane and keeping the passengers safe was with the in-flight captain. He could have chosen to land from any direction he saw fit. Which brings us to the gist of the matter: the most tragic aspect of this accident is that it could have been averted.

To ensure that such accidents are not repeated, our ATCs need to be better trained to communicate clearly in English, the language of international avi­ation. The accident should also spur authorities to expedite the process of TIA’s expansion. It badly needs another runway. Or perhaps speeding up ongoing con­struction works on the two alternate international air­ports is the right way to go about it.

But it is as much a responsibility of international air­lines to make sure that their pilots are in proper mental and physical shape to fly. It would be unjust to blame the ATCs alone.

Yes, accidents do happen. But a lot can be done to minimize the chances.  

Surkhet: Even though the gov­ernment has started provid­ing pregnant women monetary incentives to deliver at approved healthcare centers, 30 per­cent women of Surkhet district in western Nepal still deliver babies in unsafe cowsheds. In this part of Nepal, there many families that still consider preg­nant women ‘impure’ and rele­gate them to cowsheds for the nine months of pregnancy.

“These unhygienic conditions led to many still-births,” says Basanta Shrestha, the informa­tion officer of District Health Office. Even though women who do go for check-ups get Rs 400 in incentive money, around 30 percent women in the district come fewer than two times, and often deliver in the sheds. APEX BUREAU

When she suffered from pro­fuse menstrual bleeding, 22-year-old Ruma Tharu was brought to Bheri Zonal Hospital on January 5. She needed blood urgently, and was given O+. Medical attendants informed Tha­ru she would need another pint of blood the following morning, which her father Raju Tharu procured from a blood center run by the Nepal Red Cross Society. However, the blood that the center gave to Tharu was of B+ category. Soon after, Ruma started developing blisters all over her body. Both her kidneys stopped functioning. Ruma’s family staged a protest. The hospital suspended the nurse who had administered the blood. Ruma was brought to the capital and she survived. But she has become extremely weak.

Locals says the 150-bed Bheri Zon­al Hospital is marred by political interference, staff negligence and general mismanagement. Its ser­vices are increasingly brokered by middlemen. Many are compelled to seek treatment at expensive private hospitals.

It was only a month ago that the hospital administration caught a middleman who was sweet-talking patients into seeking private medi­cal services. But no action was taken against him. Reportedly, he was close to a senior hospital staffer.

The hospital is one of the few pub­lic hospitals in western Nepal with a cardiology department. But its echocardiogram machine, worth some Rs 8 million, has been broken for seven months. An echocardio­gram examination costs Rs 850 at the hospital, but private hospitals charge over Rs 2,000 for it. Similar­ly, a TMT machine bought one and a half years ago for Rs 1.3 million is also kaput. Dialysis services, which the hospital was supposed to pro­vide starting a year ago, only began two months ago.

Poor service quality owes to the carelessness of the Hospital Devel­opment Committee, alleges former committee chairman Bed Prasad Acharya. But Bir Bahadur Chand, medical superintendent at the hos­pital, claims that there has been steady progress. “Staff shortages have caused some problems, but specialized services have been improving. There hasn’t been any negligence.

What about the broken echo­cardiogram machine? “We have brought in technicians to repair it. It should be up and running a few days,” says Chand.

The hospital has had eight heads in past nine years, an apparent sign of excessive politicking. It was only in October 2016 when Chand replaced Dr Shyam Sundar Yadav, who is credited with important reforms in the hospital’s functioning. The appointment of Chand, a junior radiologist, has not gone down well with the staff and is apparently against the Health Guidelines, which stipulate that only someone from the ‘General Health’ category can be appointed medical superintendent.

Usha Shah, who currently heads the Hospital Development Commit­tee, blames it all on lack of funds. “We are committed to quality care. We have asked the government for additional resources,” she said.

By Govinda Devkota

New Delhi: Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada was in India this week to take part in a counter-terrorism confer­ence in Gurgaon. Khatiwada was the keynote speaker at the event that was organized by the India Foundation, a think-tank close to the ruling BJP party. In the conference, Khatiwada presented Nepal’s views on counter-terrorism. The conference, according to the organizers, was held to analyze the changing contours of terrorism and evolve strate­gies to equip the international community with the ability to counter the menace of terror­ism. APEX BUREAU

Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, has drawn 276,620 tourists in the two months of January and February, accord­ing to the Lumbini Development Trust. This is almost 100,000 fewer tourists than in the first two months of 2017, when 376,600 visitors had come to Lumbini.Of the 276,620 tourists visiting Lumbini this year, 223,016 were Nepalis, 24,095 were Indi­ans while 29,509 were from other countries, according to the trust’s information officer Rajan Basnet. While the number of Indian tour­ists increased slightly this year, the number of Nepali tourists went down considerably. The number of tourists from other countries also declined. According to Basnet, tourists from over 50 countries have already visited Lumbini this year. In this period, besides India, Thailand has sent the most number of foreign tourists (7,928) to Lumbini, followed by Myanmar (6,689), Sri Lanka (5,733), China (2,821) and South Korea (1,406).

Tourist arrival had suffered in 2016 because of the twin effects of the earthquake and the blockade. It picked up steam in 2017 only to slow down this year. “Most tourists to Lumbini come via the Nepal-India border. Although their primary destination is Lumbini, they don’t stay here overnight,” said Achyut Guragain, vice-chairman of Nepal Tour and Travels Asso­ciation. “That’s because they come here with Indian guides, who tell them that although Buddha was born here, other significant places associated with his life all are in India.

As a result, local businesses haven’t been able to flourish as much as they would if the tourists stayed here longer.”

 By Salman Khan  

Weekly Editorial Cartoon 

KATHMANDU: For the very first time in its cricket history, Nepal has won the one-day international (ODI) status for the next four years. 

Nepal has been assured of the ODI status after it beat Papua New Guinea by six wickets and the Netherlands defeated Hong Kong by 44 runs in the ICC World Cup Qualifier held in Zimbabwe last Thursday. 

With this, Nepal would get to participate in different tournaments organized by ICC while ICC's support to Nepal's cricket would be further increased. 

RSS

Bidya Devi Bhandari elected as Nepal president for second term