According to Monday’s THT Online report, dissatisfied with the salary and perks, a physician in the capital Kathmandu’s Bir Hospital is packing off to the Philippines.
“The remuneration provided by the government hospital has failed to attract me to stick in the job,” said the residential doctor at the hospital requesting anonymity.
The doctor said that she was unable to survive in the insignificantly low salary. She works 12 hours a day in the hospital and pockets 11,000 Nepali rupees (some 148 U.S. dollars) as monthly salary.
Bir Hospital is located in central Kathmandu.It was the first hospital in Nepal. Some of the
finest doctors of the country work at Bir Hospital.
Photo: Ingmar Zahorsky / CHINAsia Update
Two months ago, the government had hiked the salary of doctors by 3,500 rupees (some 47.2 dollars), following a string of protests. But the physicians consider the amount too paltry to motivate them.
In addition to the low salary and perks, doctors cite wanton behavior of the public including the recent incidences of attacks on hospitals and medical personnel as a de-motivating factor for doctors to stay in the country.
Senior physicians say the rush for greener pastures could have debilitating impact on the country’s ability to fight diseases.
“If the exodus continuous at the present level in 10 years the government hospitals will be emptied of doctors,” warned Dr Kedar Narsingh KC, president of Nepal Medical Association (NMA).
The brain-drain figures unveiled by the NMA are staggering. If the latest statistics is anything to go by, out of the registered 9,000 doctors, only 4,000 are currently serving the nation. The remaining ones have either left the country or are in a process to emigrate.
According to the report, among those 4,000 doctors currently in the country, 75 percent of them are serving in the private hospitals and clinics. The government hospitals are virtually dry with merely 900 doctors, many of them already heading for greener pastures.
According to NMA, the medical drain is fuelled largely by the state inability to tap qualified and trained human resource through salary and perks and that it lacks a clear-cut policies in health sector.
“The government has not reviewed its health policy since 1985 and the posting of medics is based on the old provision,” he added.
The doctor-patients ration in the countryside, outside the Kathmandu Valley is even more worrisome with a doctor having to serve at least 30,000 patients. In the urban areas, the doctor- patients ratio stands at 1:1000.
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