Local people at Malu VDC in Dolakha are reeling under an acute shortage of medicines for the past two months. Officials at the local Golmeshwor Health Post said they have no drugs in the store now.

The health workers said patients are returning without any treatment due to the shortage of medicines. Around 15 patients reach the health post on a daily basis but health workers advise them to go to the district headquarters or other health posts for treatment. Eighty-two-year-old Manamaya Shrestha of Malu said she reached Dude Bazaar to receive treatment.

Female Community Health Volunteer Santalaxmi Shrestha said the health post does not even have paracetamols. She said the number of patients who visit the health post has been increasing with the onset of the winter season. The District Health Office, however, claimed that there are still some drugs left in the health post’s store.

Local Hom Bahadur Shrestha said medicine supply came to a halt following the Indian blockade. He said a health posts in neighbouring Buma village also does not have medicines.

People living in about 20 VDCs, including Singati bazaar, are facing difficulties due to the shortage of drugs.

Meanwhile, patients who need to undergo surgery have been deprived of the service due to an acute shortage of vaccines in Parsa.

The shortage of a vaccine called Bupivacaine has deprived pregnant women of operations. Surgeon Jagat Prasad Deep of the National Medical College Teaching Hospital said services at the health facility has been affected for the past three days due to the shortage of medicines.

“We have no alternative other than using a complex anaesthetic due to the shortage,” Deep said, adding that childbirth rate in the Tarai districts increases in winter season each year.