A peon does it all as health workers opt to stay away from district

KALIKOT: What is expected at a health centre? A doctor? If not, then a health assistant? Or a trained hand who can deal with the patients? But a health post in the district has no one but a peon to attend to the patients.

The health post in Chhapre VDC has a peon as the servant and the master; as the doctor and as the nurse. The health post has been solely run by Lok Bahadur Shahi, who is an attendant there, for the last three months.

Assistant Health Worker Bimala Singh, Village Health Worker Narayn Bhandari and Maternal and Child Health Worker Uma Singh are on leave on ‘personal grounds’. Locals seeking health services here have been hard put.

Tara Bhandara of Chhapre-2 said she took her ailing son to the district headquarters after she found that there was no one to attend to him at the health post. “Lok Bahadur Shahi, who is a peon there, is the one who is running the health post,” she said.

Juwara Shahi, who is pregnant, said she had to return empty-handed when she visited the health post last time for iron pills.

When resource person at the District Public Health Office, Kalikot, Bhanubhakta Sanyal was contacted, he said he had