The Bagmati Province Ministry of Health has made it mandatory for district hospitals to invite bids for the purchase of medicines, surgical supplies and equipment, with the aim of ending health problems within the province.

The ministry has issued such instructions to district hospitals under the province after receiving information that district hospitals were purchasing medicines and medical supplies in bulk and under pressure from middlemen every month.

Bagmati Province Health Minister Kiran Thapa Magar informed that district hospitals under the province have been issued instructions to call for mandatory bids for the purchase of medicines, medical supplies and equipment.

Minister Thapa has issued such instructions after allegations were made that hospitals have repeatedly committed irregularities by purchasing medicines and medical supplies every month under the influence of middlemen, relying on the rule that district hospitals and health institutions can directly purchase up to Rs 2 million without inviting bids.

Health Minister Thapa said, 'We are allocating budget for the health of patients, but some middlemen, citing leaders and higher bodies, are pressuring district public health chiefs, hospital directors and administrations, and after it was found that more than crores of rupees were purchased in one fiscal year by colluding and breaking them into pieces, the ministry has instructed to complete the mandatory bidding process even for the purchase of medicines and other materials up to Rs 1 million, and this will be implemented.'

He said that all 13 hospitals in the province have been issued a circular to implement this directive from the current fiscal year, adding that middlemen are also trying to influence the Ministry of Health. 

Minister Thapa said that the ministry is trying to stop this after it was found that employees from the ministry to hospitals will be promoted, some will be transferred to better hospitals, and some will be made hospital directors, influencing the procurement process.

Some hospital directors have informed that middlemen have threatened to transfer them if they call for bids for the purchase of medicines and pharmaceutical products without purchasing them directly, Minister Thapa said, adding that efforts are being made to stop such wrongdoings in the health sector. 

The ministry has implemented a system to call for mandatory bids even for purchases of goods up to one million rupees to stop middlemen, after it was found that middlemen were pressuring employees of the ministry, including the heads of the district public health offices, hospital directors and employees, and people's representatives, to purchase goods even under the title of having no budget and program, and making threatening phone calls and messages, which demoralized them.

Arjun Sapkota, Chief of the Supply Division of the Ministry of Health, said that employees have become frustrated with the repeated threats of middlemen. Ministry employees have demanded that the entire government and people's representatives support them in ending middlemen by writing unnecessary and false news against employees and saying who will take responsibility if the ministry is vandalized or an employee is assaulted by the middlemen in the name of Genji or someone else.

It has been found that middlemen have been pressuring the Ministry's Supply Division to the Secretary, the Directors of various hospitals and the Chiefs of District Public Health Offices to purchase the goods they have and even the goods that are about to expire as the end of the fiscal year approaches. According to the Ministry, the middlemen have been pressuring the Chiefs of Hospitals and Public Health to directly purchase the medicines, equipment and surgical items they have in violation of the law, and have been pressuring the Ministry to put petrol in the middlemen's vehicles while going back and forth to put pressure on them.