The Kathmandu Metropolitan City has been planning to mobilise health workers—doctors, nurses, and female community health volunteers—to provide health care to bedridden elderly people who have long been deprived of treatment.

Officials say preparations to provide service to the target population at home has been completed, and health workers will be deployed after a week.

“Nurses will take details of the bedridden patients, examine blood pressure, blood sugar and other factors and recommend doctors’ care if required,” said Dr Deewash Neupane, an official at the Health Department of the city office. “The exact number of bedridden elderly people who have been deprived of access to health care is not known, but they could be in significant numbers.”

The city office has decided to provide treatment at home to elderly people above 70 years of age who cannot move or walk and have been deprived of treatment for a long time. Officials say the move would also serve as a feasibility study for future planning.

Doctors say that as people age, they experience numerous health problems. Psychological changes occur, and elderly people show cognitive decline, limited mobility, hearing loss, vision impairment, depressive symptoms, and also suffer from multiple other non-communicable diseases, including high blood sugar, blood pressure, and renal problems, among others.

“We have been planning to provide integrated care to the elderly people at their homes,” said Neupane.

The city office had also administered the pneumonia vaccine to over 5,000 elderly residents with underlying conditions who face a heightened risk of lung infection in winter.

Pneumonia, an infection of the lungs caused by various types of bacteria, viruses and fungi, is the leading cause of morbidity in Nepal from which thousands of people from across the country get affected. It is also the number one killer of children under five in the country.

Viruses that cause influenza are highly contagious, which spread quickly in communities and affect the lungs of those who are infected. These diseases can cause fever, cough, body aches, and sometimes vomiting and diarrhoea, as well as pneumonia. If left untreated, they can lead to death. Pneumonia caused by bacteria is even deadlier than that caused by viruses, and children under five and people above 65 years of age are highly vulnerable to the disease, experts say.

Officials at the city office say that elderly people who generally have multiple comorbidities are highly vulnerable to complications if they suffer from pneumonia. They say many elderly people do not seek pneumonia shots on their own, as the vaccine is costly, and many families don’t think it necessary to purchase vaccines for their vulnerable parents, even if they can afford to do so.

The health department has also planned to launch an awareness drive on mental health in February. Officials say they have been coordinating with major hospitals to provide psychiatric and psychological care at no cost to patients in need.

The city office has also asked big hospitals, including Bir Hospital, Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital and Civil Service Hospital, to provide their price lists for cervical cancer screening. Only the officials at Civil Service Hospital have responded, while those at Bir Hospital and Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital have stated they will reply soon as well.

“We will choose one hospital and ask health workers to refer suspected cancer patients for testing,” Neupane said. “Testing will be carried out free of cost, and the service will be provided in February-March.”