Sangita Bhandari, VC of PAHS and Saumya Bhattarcharya, Rector of PAHS, were suspended for one week. As per the PAHS regulations, office bearers of the institution are automatically suspended after the formation of a probe committee to investigate allegations against them. [break]
"Prime Minister himself tried his best to settle the dispute but to no avail. So he formed a three-member committee to investigate the dispute," Krishna Hari Banskota, Secretary at the Prime Minister´s Office, said.
The committee headed by Prof Shiva Kumar Rai, member of National Planning Commission (NPC), has Dr Pravin Mishra, Secretary of Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) and Suresh Man Shrestha, Secretary of Ministry of Education (MoE) as its members.
Banskota informed that the committee has been asked to submit it report in one week. He said that Prime Minister Bhattarai is very serious about the problems of hospital, which directly hits poor patients.
However, agitating doctors and employees at the hospital said that they will not stop the agitation until their demands are met.
"It feels good to hear about the suspension of office bearers but we will continue our protest until our principal demand - resignation of VC Bhandari and Rector Bhattacharya - is met," Bharat Yadav, a member of Patan Hospital Struggle Committee said. Yadav said that a meeting of hospital struggle committee will be held on Thursday to decide its future course.
Doctors, students and health workers at Patan Hospital have been protesting for the past two months. VC Bhandari and Rector Bhattacharya have so far refused to resign insisting that they have not done anything wrong to the institution.
Classes of PAHS have been disrupted for the past three weeks. Students pursuing MBBS at PAHS have also supported the agitation. Dr Yadav said the meeting of the struggle committee will decide whether to resume classes.
A three-day ultimatum given by the prime minister to the office bearers to settle the problems ended on Friday without any developments. Secretary Banskota, who was tasked with mediating between the disputing parties to resolve the problems, said that he had called both parties for talks several times but failed to make headway.
Earlier, the agitating doctors at the hospital threatened to resign collectively if their demands were not met. The doctors and health workers have been organizing a series of protests after VC Bhandari appointed Dr Bhattacharya as Rector. They have been demanding an end to political interference in the hospital.
While Dr Bhattacharya was the former head of the department of anatomy, Dr Bhandari was the former head of the department of Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) at BP Koirala Institute of Health Science (BPKIHS), Dharan.
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