Ventilators at Udayapur district hospital remain useless

Kathmandu - While many hospitals across the country are crying for ventilators amidst numerous COVID-19 patients, two ventilators set up at the District Hospital, Udayapur have remained useless. Lack of technicians to operate the equipment is blamed for its uselessness. As a result, the hospital is forced to have referred patients who need ventilator elsewhere, said the hospital chief Dr Jiban Narayan Mandal.

Their repeated pleas to the Federal and Provincial Governments to provide technicians or make arrangements in this regard have been unheard so far, said the Hospital Development Committee member Mahesh Roka. "Without a ventilator at the hospital, patients are forced to have visited private health institutions for the service paying high cost," said Gyan Bahadur Basnet, a local of Triyuga Municipality-3.