FREE HEALTH CARE

The Kathmandu Post
November 17, 2008

Free Health Care

This is in reference to the news article” Free health care to be expanded” (15 November 2008). The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) deserves appreciation for this positive, thoughtful and encouraging decision. However, the mechanism and affectivity of its implementation is yet to be seen. The ministry completely failed to implement its decision of last December to provide free health care services in Health Posts (HP) and Sub Health Posts (SHP) due to lack of human and financial resources. It was poorly implemented and raised unnecessarily high expectations among the people.

The government supplied free medicines to HPs and SHPs for a year last merely for few months. Now MoHP is talking about expanding the program to Primary Health Care Centres (PHC) and district hospitals (DH). According to records at the Family Health Divisions, there are 90 DHs, 180 PHCs, 699 HPs and 3,131 SHPs. Would it be feasible and possible for the MoHP to provide free medicine to these health institutions through out the year? Where do the resources come from?

Rai Biren Bangdel

Maharajgunj, Kathmandu