Expressing their solidarity with Dr Govinda KC, resident doctors of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH), have decided to skip their outpatient duties and academic classes from Wednesday.

Issuing a statement on Tuesday, the National Resident Doctors’ Association of TUTH stated that they were forced to take the move as the concerned authorities did  not seem serious  about addressing Dr KC’s demands.

There are 300 resident doctors at TUTH who caters to around 3,000 patients daily. Without them the outpatient services could be severely affected.

Dr KC, a senior orthopaedic surgeon at the TUTH, has been staging a hunger strike for past nine days, demanding reforms in medical education.

His major demands include endorsement of Health Profession Education (HPE) bill. Apart from HPE bill, he has also demanded mandatory enrolment of meritorious students in private medical colleges, many of which have been admitting students even with poor results by charging exorbitant admission fee.

Dr KC has also demanded that the Institute of Medicine be given the authority to enrol students, set fees and grant affiliation and de-affiliate medical colleges that fail to abide by the directives issued by the government and the court.

This is Dr KC’s eleventh hunger strike .

Bill passage top priority: House panel

KATHMANDU:  Lawmakers have expressed their commitment to endorse the Health Profession Education bill at the earliest. In a meeting convened by the government talks team, Ranju Jha, chairperson of Women, Children, Senior Citizens and Social Welfare Committee of Parliament, said that the endorsement of the HPE bill was the top priority in the committee.  To decide the fate of the bill, Jha said, a final round of meeting will be held on Wednesday. The Tuesday’s meeting held at Ministry of Education was attended by the members of the Mathema Committee that prepared the “Report on Health Profession Education Policy”, the members of the HPE bill drafting committee and stakeholders from health education sector. All experts have urged the parliamentarians to endorse the HPE bill soon.