Human resource crunch affects health service delivery in Solukhumbu

Salleri (Solukhumbu) - Health service delivery has been affected in this mountainous district in the eastern part of the country in the absence of sufficient human resources at the district-based health facilities. 

The Bhakanje Health Post based in Likhupike Rural Municipality-5 is running with the help of just two Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), despite a quota for five health workers. The locals have the complaint that if in case the available two assistant health workers in the health post stayed on leave they would be deprived of timely healthcare facilities. More, the health post does not have even the general medicine paracetamol, said local Shyam Bahadur Basnet. 

Likhupike is one of the remotest villages in the district and people of this area have to walk for two days to reach the nearby District Hospital, Phaplu or visit Bamtibhandar of Ramechhap district in the need for facilities that are not available in the locality, said local Gita Basnet. The Likhupike folks fear of the possibility of untimely deaths in the deprival of treatment. 

Health post management committee chair Aangwang Sherpa said they have already informed the District Public Health Office about the human resources crisis facing the health post, but to no avail. 

Human resource crisis is not the problem only of Likhupike Rural Municipality, almost all health facilities in the district are facing this situation, the DPHO said. The posts of senior public health officer, a lab assistant or a non-gazetted first class officer have been lying vacant within the office itself. 

The posts of a staff nurse, one lab technician and one Assistant Health Worker are lying vacant at the District Hospital. 

According to DPHO Solukhumbu information officer Pawan Lama, health posts based in the rural areas in the district have been running by a limited number of human resources since a year as the transfer of the then staff was not adjusted so far. 

A health post has a quota for five health workers --one health assistant, two assistant health workers and two ANMs-- while a primary health center has a quota for 10 including an MBBS doctor.