Medical college administrators have expressed their anger over the Health Insurance Board’s failure to pay for services provided under health insurance. Holding a press conference in Kathmandu, BNC Medical College Birtamod and Nobel Medical College Biratnagar have decided to stop providing services under health insurance from Ashad 20.

Durga Prasai, administrator of BNC Medical College Birtamod, has said that they will not be able to provide services to patients who have health insurance as the board has not paid the amount. Prasai says that the amount of over 450 million should be paid within about 10 months from last Kartik to now. His hospital has been providing services to 1,000 patients with health insurance daily. However, he said that he has decided to stop treatment related to this service as the board has not paid on time.

Prasai says that due to such irresponsibility of the government, all the private hospitals opened in Nepal will be closed in the next 5 years. According to him, the doctors and nurses currently produced in Nepal are going abroad due to the inability to manage them. He said that since the health sector manpower produced in Nepal will be sent abroad, the elderly people in Nepal will not be able to provide services and those who are going to study abroad will stay there, so the hospital will have to be operated by bringing nurses from the Philippines and India.

Bhim B. Chand, representative of the hospital’s management department, said that Nobel Medical College Biratnagar has also not received payment from the Health Insurance Board since last October. He said that the medical college has been providing health insurance-related services to 1,500 people daily. He said that Nobel Medical currently needs to receive a payment of 540 million from the board. He says that the hospital employees have not been paid salaries for 3 months because the board has stopped the payment due. The board has been delaying and delaying work that could be done in a day. If necessary, they are ready to correct the policy, but if the government does not pay the amount for 8 months, they will stop the health insurance service from Asad 20, he said.