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Kathmandu Sunday October 14, 2001 Ashwin 28, 2058.
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Army to take over mission hospital in Gorkha
By Tilak Pokharel
KATHMANDU, Oct 13 – Royal Nepal Army (RNA) is taking over the Gorkha
Mission Hospital in Gorkha district after the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) decided to
leave the management on September 4, a senior government official said here today.
"The RNA will now run the mission hospital from this fiscal year,"
said Ram Kumar Shrestha, joint secretary of the National Planning Commission (NPC).
The NPC has already planned to hand over the hospital management to the RNA
to run the hospital under the Ministry of Health, said Shrestha. The decision has been
taken as part of the government’s Integrated Security and Development Plan (ISDP).
According to Bhola Silwal, spokesperson of the Defence Ministry, a team of
RNA went to Aappipal and conducted a feasibility study of running the hospital ten days
ago.
Despite much requests from the locals to continue support for the hospital,
which is located in remote Aappipal Village Development Committee, the UMN took backed
down from it after running it for nearly 32 years. The UMN had earlier decided to quit
from the management citing "various" problems they have faced in the last two to
three years.
However, locals feel that the UMN decided to hand over the management to them
after they received serious threats from the Maoists.
Though the UMN handed over the hospital management to the locals, the latter
had no idea on how to run the hospital.
Deputy Director of UMN Health Services Department, Sanu Raja Ranjit, had told
The Kathmandu Post that UMN was withdrawing from the hospital mainly due to the lack of
doctors.
Gorkha is the first district where the government implemented the Integrated
Security Development Plan to quell the Maoists insurgency, deploying 1,200 army personnel
to implement various development programmes.
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