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
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