Nima Tshering Tamang, 38, who is being treated for a broken leg at Bir Hospital in Kathmandu, is taken to another hospital in a stretcher after the Nepal Medical Association halted health care services across the country in protest against the government’s decision to appoint Dr Shashi Sharma as the new dean of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), yesterday.

AFP/Kathmandu

Nepalese doctors shut hospitals and clinics across the Himalayan nation, leaving thousands of patients stranded yesterday, as part of a campaign to reform medical education, the national doctors’ association said.

Doctors were still providing emergency and intensive care but all other services have been halted indefinitely since Sunday in a strike to support a surgeon leading the campaign, Nepal Medical Association (NMA) officials said.

Orthaopedic surgeon Govinda KC, who works at the state-run Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, began a hunger strike 10 days ago to protest the alleged political appointment of the institution’s new dean.

“We are aware that thousands of patients have been hit hard by our strike. But we were forced to resort to this after our senior doctor faced a life-threatening condition,” NMA spokesman Lochan Karki said, referring to the hunger strike.

“We fully support his demands ... we feel that there are better qualified persons for the job,” Karki said.

The 56-year-old surgeon is also campaigning against alleged political interference in appointing heads of medical colleges and was pushing for greater transparency and autonomy in state-run teaching hospitals.

Govinda, well-known in Nepal for his philanthropic efforts to help victims of disasters at home and internationally, was also calling on authorities to open more medical colleges in the country’s remote areas, instead of focusing on Kathmandu.

Nepal is home to some 400 private and state-run hospitals and thousands of clinics, which serve over 100,000 patients daily, according to an estimate by NMA official Milan Chandra Khanal.

The Supreme Court of Nepal yesterday issued an interim order telling agitating doctors to immediately resume medical services across the country.

A single-judge bench of Justice Prakash Wosti ordered the agitating doctors not to halt the medical services in line with the Essential Services Act.

The Supreme Court order came in response to a writ petition filed by lawyer Bishnu Prasad Timilsena demanding resumption of the services at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu. The TU Teaching Hospital has remained stalled since January 13.

The Nepal Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also urged doctors across the country to withdraw their protest programme and respect the fundamental right of people to avail medical services.

The closure has affected thousands of sick people across the country.

“The closure of the hospital is against the basic principles of professionalism and it has also violated the basic rights to health,” the NHRC said in a press statement.