When Bir Bahadur BK of Putha Uttarganga Rural Municipality Ward No. 14 fractured one of his hands while fetching fodder for his cattle, he immediately rushed to the nearby Kol primary health post. But unfortunately, he had to return home untreated, as the health post did not have any skilled health personnel. Mangala Budha Magar of the same local unit recounted a similar experience when no one could operate the x-ray machine at the health post.

The health post serves patients from at least six wards in three rural municipalities—Putha Uttarganga, Bhume and Sisne. The facility is fairly well-equipped for a primary care health centre. What it lacks is manpower, as a result of which, many patients are compelled to return home untreated or travel some distance elsewhere in the district.

Locals say that even though the health post has a designated pool of human resources, they hardly show up. And when they do, they don’t stay for long. Out of the 11 designated positions at the health post, five are currently vacant. Since the former chief doctor, Topendra Karki, was transferred during the employee readjustment, the post has yet to be filled. The health post is currently operated by three Auxiliary Health Workers and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives each and one lab technician.

“None of the doctors remain at the rural municipality for long, and those who do don’t show up at the health post regularly,” said Bahadur Sunar, a local of Ward No. 12.

Ganga Pun, chief of ward no. 12 and chair of the health post management committee, admitted that patients are deprived of primary care due to a lack of manpower. “Health personnel posted here always want to transfer to other places,” Pun said. “It might be because of the remoteness of the rural municipality. None of the personnel at the post has served full time yet.”

After the federal government ignored the rural municipality’s call to send workers to Kol health post, the local unit tried to take matters into its hand and issued a vacancy notice for the available positions. But, according to Pun, nobody has applied yet.