After 12 years of the arrival of health equipment, the NICU service has finally come into operation at the Provincial Hospital Bhadrapur. With the start of the NICU service, the poor and needy families who came to the hospital to deliver their babies have also been forced to go to private hospitals.

Before the operation of the four-bed NICU service, the acting medical superintendent of the hospital, Dr Sanjay Kumar Gupta, performed a special prayer on Monday morning. After that, the chairman of the Hospital Operation and Management Committee, Bishwanath Baral, and the mayor of Bhadrapur Municipality, Ganesh Pokharel, jointly inaugurated the NICU service room.

The Ministry of Health and Population had provided health equipment to the hospital in two phases in 2013 with the aim of facilitating the treatment of newborns. However, the NICU service could not be put into operation due to lack of manpower. Acting Medical Superintendent Dr Sanjay Kumar Gupta said that the NICU service was brought into operation after the Ministry of Health of the Koshi Province Government provided manpower.

The NICU requires four pediatricians, nine nursing staff, four office assistants and four security guards. Stating that the NICU room has now been brought into operation near the children’s ward of the old building with the addition of that manpower, Dr Gupta said, “Now complex maternity services are possible and when there was no NICU, such patients had to be referred elsewhere.”

“My first goal after taking charge of the hospital was to resume services from the new building and to the NICU equipment stored in the hospital's warehouse into use and resuming services which has been achieved”, he said.

He added that other services are being gradually added to the hospital in recent times so that they are not deprived of services and do not have to go elsewhere. The monthly cost of operating this service is Rs 9-100,000. Since they are kept on trial for three weeks, the service for patients with social security is free. He said that the service fee will be fixed as per the decision of the management committee.