In his first decision after taking charge, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal set himself easy targets. The four priorities indentified by the PM either have been completed or are close to completion.

The task of providing Rs1 million for each of those killed during the Madhes movement, for example, was already completed by the previous government while the announcement of deploying doctors to all the Primary Health Care Centres (PHCC) in the next three months too remains relatively easy with less than two dozen PHCCs being without doctors.

According to the Department of Health Services, 20 of the 205 PHCCs do not have doctors stationed in them. Each PHCC has an MBBS doctor as its head.

Two PHCCs in Kanchanpur—at Beldande and Sripur—do not have doctors, said Shiva Dutta Bhatta, the district public health officer in Kanchanpur. “We have not been able to send a doctor to the Beldande PHCC for last one-and-a-half years,” said Bhatta.

In Kailali, the Joshipur and Udasipur PHCCs have been without doctors. Also, some PHCCs in Morang and Baitadi are without MBBS doctors.

The PHCC is a referral centre for patients from health posts. The Health Ministry has been upgrading many health posts to PHCC and it has a provision that an MBBS doctor should lead the health centre.

The government has been stationing doctors who got their undergraduate medical education with a government scholarship to various PHCCs. At least 300 MBBS graduates had got scholarships from the Ministry of Education. Recently, the government also decided to deploy doctors who studied MBBS with scholarship at the TU Institute of Medicine to the rural areas.

Dr Naresh Pratap KC, chief of the Management Division at the Health Department, said they would soon deploy doctors to the PHCCs.

“We are verifying the number of doctors sent to the PHCCs. Once the verification of lists is over, we will deploy additional doctors,” said Dr KC.