Health Services Available in Nepal

1. Health post and sub-health post

The main purpose of health post is to provide basic health services to people who live in rural areas. Generally, one health post covers five VDCs. The chief of the health post is usually ‘health assistant’ or ‘senior auxiliary health worker’. The qualification of health assistant is the certificate in general medicine. The health post provides simple health services such as preventive, promotive and curative services. In Terai, each health post has 7 workers and in mountain and hilly region, each health post has 6 workers. There are 711 health post and 3,176 sub-health posts in each VDC.

2. Primary health centre

A primary health centre has comparatively better health facilities than a health post. One ‘medical officer’ heads it with eleven other personnel. There is provision of three beds, one for delivering purpose while the other two are for the general purpose. There are 180 health centres.

3. Hospitals

A hospital is considered as a more reliable and well-equipped health service providing organisation. In a hospital, services that are more specialised are available with advanced equipment. The first hospital of Nepal is Bir Hospital established in 1947 BS. The hospital provides three types of services namely:

• Emergency services: Emergency services cover sudden illness and accidental cases. These services are available throughout the day and the night (24 hours).
• Outdoor services: Outdoor services refer to those services where patients check-up their health, and get medicine and counselling from time to time. These patients are not hospitalised.
• Indoor services: Indoor services are for those patients whose cases are serious, and hence, hospitalised. Generally, hospital is categorised in two ways. One is on the basis of services, other on the basis of region.

Types of hospitals on service basis

1. General hospital: A General hospital has 15-50 beds. This type of hospital, such as the Mahendra Adarsha Chikitsalaya, Bharatpur is established in different districts.
2. Specialised Hospital: This kind of hospital provides specialised health services. It has more than 100 beds. The Maternity Hospital, Kanti Bal Hospital, etc are the examples of it.
3. Special Hospital: This type of hospital provides services on special diseases. Eye Hospital, TB Hospital, Leprosy Hospital, etc. are examples of this kind of hospital.
4. Teaching Hospital: This type of Hospital provides health services and produces medical manpower. Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Nepal Teaching Hospital, K.U. Teaching Hospital (B&B), Jorpati Hospital, Manipal Hospital in Pokhara etc are some examples of it.

Types of hospitals on regional basis

1. District Hospital: This kind of hospital is located in different districts of the country. There are 65 hospitals in different districts of the country. The government has made a policy to establish one hospital in each district. A district hospital has 25-50 beds.
2. Zonal Hospital: This kind of hospital is located in different zones of the country. There are nine zonal hospitals in Nepal. The government has made a policy to establish one zonal hospital in each zone. The number of beds in the zonal hospital is 50-150. There are nine hospitals in this category. They are in Mahendranagar, Dhangadhi, Nepalgunj, Butwal, Birgunj, Janakpur, Rajbiraj, Biratnagar and Chandragadhi.
3. Regional Hospital: This kind of hospital is established in different development regions. There are two regional hospitals: one at the western region (Pokhara) and another at the eastern region Dharan (B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Science) in the country and the government is planning to establish one hospital in every development region. In each regional hospital, there are 150-250 beds.
4. Central Hospital: There are also central hospitals, which provide more specialised curative health services. Bir Hospital, Teaching Hospital, Maternity Hospital, Eye Hospital are some examples of central hospital. Besides these hospitals, there are other hospitals such as Nardevi Ayurvedic Hospital, Private Nursing Home, Army Hospital, Police Hospital, etc.