Feature: "100 days of Suffering" rally highlights health sector crisis in Nepal

The ongoing unrest in the southern plains of Nepal along with an unofficial embargo imposed by India has left the whole nation high and dry. There has not been a single sector which has not been touched by the crisis; spanning daily life, education and business.

As the protest by the ethnic minority Madhesi community entered its one hundredth day on Sunday, people have started coming out of their homes and pressuring the government to act immediately.

On Monday morning, a few hundred Kathmanduties marched in the city with placards highlighting "100 days of Suffering." On the same afternoon, a symbolic rally was organized urging the government to lift the inhumane blockade and save the health sector.

As the hospitals and medical stores are on the verge of closure due to a lack of life-saving medicine and fuel supplies, people from different walks of life joined the rally, demanding to save the lives of patients.

Chanda Rana, an environmentalist and a campaigner, who led the rally, told Xinhua, "Due to the fuel crisis, it has been difficult for hospitals to run smoothly. It's difficult for doctors and medical personnel to be transported and the delivery of medicine has been severely hampered. The health sector should not be impaired in such a way."

There has been a noticeable drop of patients in hospitals in the capital in recent days. In addition, the fuel crisis has made it difficult for patients to reach hospitals for regular check-up and hospitals are struggling to operate all their units.

Patients of Intensive and Critical Care Units have more to suffer as there is an acute shortage of life-saving drugs.

A pharmacist based in the premises of Nagarik Hospital at Bhaktapur said that the drugs like Adrenalin and Atropine, which are vital for heart patients, are running out. Many hospitals have also rescheduled the surgeries of patients due to a lack of surgical equipment.

For instance, Shahid Gangalal Memorial Hospital, one of the country's renowned cardiothoracic surgeons reduced regular surgical cases by 50 percent. If this is the case inside the capital, the situation in remote districts outside of the valley can be easily imagined.

"Life of thousands of patients across the country is at risk but I am surprised to see the government sleeping. There is no blood-collection, no blood bags and no test-kits. This humanitarian crisis should not be ignored by the state," Sheela Thapa, President of "Down Syndrome Society Nepal" told Xinhua.

According to Thapa, among 30 patients who are affiliated under her day-care center, only 10 have been able to join the center in the recent days.

The ongoing crisis has been a tragedy for the people of the Himalayan nation, who have already suffered a devastating earthquake just a few months ago along with aftershocks still being felt recently.

"Scarcity of fuel and daily essentials can be adjusted with other alternatives, but people are clueless about managing medicine or health on their own," 29-year-old medical student Bigyan Bhattarai, a participant in the rally, told Xinhua.

Many participants carried empty blood bags and empty saline water bottles to show the miserable conditions the patients are facing inside the hospitals.

Only last week, irate protesters had hurled a petrol bomb in a vehicle carrying medicine in the southern Madhesi region. Not limited to this, an ambulance was also torched by demonstrators signifying the risk the health sector is facing.

Though the Ministry of Health and Population is planning to airlift life-saving drugs, it is certain that the loss will be huge for this quake-ravaged country if it doesn't respond to the crisis immediately. Endit