"Bir Hospital will become a nursing home of the doctors if the hospital beds were not brought under proper control of the hospital," reads the report revealed Thursday.[break]
The beds are under control of the chiefs of the respective units of the hospital and a patient gets admission only after the approval of the consultant doctors, the report claims. "The patients are therefore denied admission even in the unoccupied beds," the report says.
Director of the hospital Dr Bulanda Thapa, however, denied the allegations. "The doctors cannot decide about free services. There is a separate mechanism for provision of free services and we do not provide to those who do not deserve," Dr Thapa claimed.
But Director Thapa conceded that there are many loopholes in the administrative system of the hospital. "We are trying to stop the irregularities," Dr Thapa added. People go to Bir Hospital in hope of getting treatment from consultant doctors but it is hard to find those doctors in the hospital during duty hours. "The consultant doctors hand over their responsibility to the residents and interns and remain busy in their own clinics," the report further accuses.
The report also reveals that the employees working in the hospital provide X-ray, lab tests, CT scan, medicines and other services to their acquaintances without even a ticket due to lack of proper registration system
The hospital has recruited a large number of volunteers, the report contends, despite enough employees of its own. Those volunteers are handed encouragement allowances, according to the report. The hospital has decided to take 70 MBBS students for internship but it has taken 16 more under pressure from the hospital director and vice-chancellor of the National Institute of Medical Sciences (NAMS).
The NVC has also found rampant irregularities in the cash counter of the hospital. The income of the hospital should be deposited in the hospital´s bank account as per the regulations. But NVC inspectors found that accountant Shiva Kumari Rijal has not deposited Rs 5,772,656 in the bank account. The NVC suspects that the 20 staff working at the cash counter might be using the money for private purposes.
NVC has requested the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) for further investigation into the matter.
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