Govt should prioritise child health, need a children’s hospital in every province: Prof. Dr. Chaudhary
Technology to operate the child in the womb is necessary in Nepal
Pramila Karki, Nepal News Bank
Kathmandu.
Senior pediatric surgeon and pediatric urologist and executive director of Ishan Children’s and Women’s Hospital, Prof Dr Ramananda Prasad Chaudhary, pointed out the need to establish at least one government children’s hospital in every province.
In an exclusive interview with Nepal News Bank, he said that although there was a lot of discussion on child and maternal rights, in practice, no work has been done to meet it.
He expressed concern over not a single government children’s hospital being established outside Kathmandu even years after the implementation of federal structure in Nepal.
According to him, it is time to make their health the first priority of the state as children between the ages of newborn and 18 years make up about 40 percent of the country’s population. He said, “The government talks a lot about child rights and maternal rights, but in practice it does not seem to be working accordingly.”
When I started my service in 2052 BS, there was only one government children’s hospital in Nepal. Today, the situation is almost the same. There is a need to establish at least one government children’s hospital in each of the seven provinces. He said establishment of children’s hospital in all seven provinces would help reduce infant mortality rate, infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate. Stating that problems related to congenital surgery were also increasing along with non-communicable diseases in child health, he said the lives of many children could be saved if specialist services were provided on time.
Recalling that he was one of the first qualified pediatric surgeons in Nepal, Prof Dr Chaudhary said that there has been a remarkable progress in the field of pediatric surgery in the last three decades. According to him, when he started his service in Nepal, there was only one specialist pediatric surgeon in the country and now there are about 32-33 specialist doctors.
According to him, although there has been significant improvement in technology, skilled human resources and treatment services, the government structures are yet to be expanded.
Stating that Ishan Children’s and Women’s Hospital has been developed as the first private children’s hospital in Nepal, he said that NRNs from India, UK, Dubai, Bangladesh and other countries are coming to Nepal for treatment of their children.
‘Earlier, Nepalis used to go abroad for treatment, now the number of children coming to Nepal for surgery has increased. I take this as my trust towards Nepali health services,” he said.
Stating that the technology to perform surgery in the womb is necessary in Nepal, Dr. Chaudhary pointed out the need of starting such service in Nepal as well, saying that the technology to perform surgery in the womb is also done in the developed countries of the world.
Recalling that he had received training on this technology in the US about two decades ago, he expressed the belief that such advanced service could be operated in Nepal in the future.
He informed that Ishan Children’s and Women’s Hospital is providing treatment services in a child-friendly environment. According to him, the hospital provides multispeciality services including pediatric surgery, pediatric urology, neonatal surgery, pediatric burn and pediatric laparoscopic surgery. The hospital has a separate laparoscopy machine, cystoscopy equipment, state-of-the-art CT scan service and child-friendly emergency treatment system, he said.
‘In many hospitals, children are operated on with devices made for adults. In our hospital, separate equipment is used for children,” he said.
24-hour expert service
. According to Dr. Chaudhary, Ishan Children’s and Women’s Hospital has 24-hour specialist pediatric and pediatric surgery services.
He said that although most of the private hospitals in Nepal will be closed on Saturdays, the OPD will be operated from 7 am to 8 pm on Saturdays at Ishan Hospital. Similarly, vaccination service for seven days, ultrasound, emergency surgery and 24-
hour child-friendly CT scan service are also available, he said.
Dr. Chaudhary also said that Nepal can become a hub of medical tourism
Dr. Chaudhary said that there is a huge potential of medical tourism in Nepal.
According to him, most of the pediatric surgeries done in India, Singapore or Bangkok at a cost of millions of rupees can be done in Nepal at a very low cost of international standard.
‘In India, we can do a surgery that costs five lakh rupees for about one lakh rupees here. Our goal is to provide quality service at affordable price,” he said.
He expressed the belief that if the government of Nepal could adopt medical tourism as a national policy, it could become a health hub of South Asia.
Quality and easy service is prioritized
Pvt. Dr. Stating that the main objective of Ishan Children’s and Women’s Hospital is to provide quality services at a modest cost, special priority has been given to quality, modern technology, experienced doctors and timely treatment in child health services.
He concluded that real change in Nepal’
s child health sector would be possible only if the government took child health as a long-term investment and established government children’s hospitals in all seven provinces.
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