![]() The specialist doctors at Bir have insisted on buying another Canadian-made cobalt machine at a cost of Rs 120 million. Though the Canadian-made Cobalt-60 had a 10-year warranty, it was used for 25 years, under the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS). The dysfunctional cobalt machine at Bir was purchased in 1991. Meanwhile, the number of new patients at Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital exceeds 1,500 while Bharatpur Cancer Hospital sees more than 6,000 new cases each year. "We are in immediate need of such a machine."Īccording to Bir Hospital, about 1,300 new cancer patients are diagnosed there every year. "We don't have a radiotherapy machine to treat the cancer patients," he said. "These days, only 30 to 40 such patients visit the hospital daily," said Associate Professor Dr Bibek Acharya, head of the Department of Clinical Oncology. Since then, the patients have been forced to go for radiotherapy at other hospitals, where the treatment costs are steep.īir used to provide radiotherapy at the cost of Rs 5,000 while Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital is providing the same service at Rs 25,000, and private hospitals charge Rs 75,000-125,000.īefore the cobalt machine broke down, 70 to 80 patients used to come to Bir Hospital every day for checkups and cancer treatment. KATHMANDU, March 31: Pressure to purchase a specific radiotherapy machine for Bir Hospital, the oldest and biggest hospital in the country, has deprived cancer patients of treatment for more than a year and a half.īir Hospital's Cobalt-60 machine, which is used to provide cancer patients radiotherapy, stopped working 19 months ago. ![]()
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