Not all patients visiting Narayani Sub Regional Hospital in Parsa get free of cost medicines, as they are unaware about such programme and the hospital staff do not tell them.

A majority of the patients visiting the hospital come from rural areas, and a majority of them do not know about the government’s free medicine programme.

A source at the hospital said that the free of cost medicines were being distributed to friends and relatives of doctors and other staff instead. Some of the staff even sell the medicines to pharmacies, the source added.

Ramesh Chaudhary, information officer at the hospital, however, claimed that the patients were receiving free medicines from Sajha pharmacy.

But Paramesh Yadav, of Nagardaha VDC-9, who had come to the hospital with his sick son, said he had to buy the medicines for his son. The hospital staff did not tell him about free medicine programme, he said.

Besides Yadav, the other people visiting the hospital were also uninformed about free of cost medicines that are available at the government-run hospitals and health facilities across the country.

The hospital has been purchasing Rs 70,000 worth of medicines every month to run free medicine programme. However, most of the patients  at the hospital when asked said that they were learning for the first time that there is a such thing as free medicine programme.