The Ministry of Labor had implemented a system to conduct 34 types of health tests for workers, including heart and kidney tests and video X-rays, since the first week of last November.
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Kailash Khadka, President of the Federation of Nepalese Health Professionals, has requested the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Affairs to reconsider the repeal of the revised standards implemented to ensure quality health screening of workers going for foreign employment.
‘Listed health institutions will work only within the government’s laws and regulations. We are ready to cooperate and coordinate with the Ministry of Labor for this,’ said Chairman Khadka while addressing a health camp jointly organized by the Nepal Health Professionals Federation, Nepal Medical Professionals Association and GAMKA Nepal on Sunday on the occasion of Immigration Day. ‘We hope that the revised criteria that have been rejected will be reconsidered and quality health tests for workers going for foreign employment will be conducted.’
The Ministry of Labor had implemented the system of conducting 34 types of health tests, including heart, kidney tests, and video X-rays, for workers since the first week of last Mangsir. The package for this was fixed at Rs 9,500.
Newly appointed Minister for Labor, Employment and Social Security Rajendra Singh Bhandari decided on Friday to remove the fees for 34 types of health tests, saying that the employer is not required to test for all diseases. According to his decision, the revised procedure on Chaitra 8 of the ‘Institutions for Health Examination of Workers Going for Foreign Employment, Listing, Renewal and Monitoring-2072’ has been canceled. According to which, the previous 24 types of tests will be conducted and a fee of Rs 6,500 will be charged.
The Federation said that according to the revised procedure of the Ministry of Labor on Chaitra 8, health professionals have been provided with additional health examination materials, lab improvements and manpower to conduct health examinations of workers. ‘After nine months, the Ministry of Labor itself selected the health institutions by monitoring whether the health examination institutions have improved the labs and added health materials as per the standards. A huge investment has been made by the businessmen in this. Investment has been made to purchase equipment and hire technical manpower as determined by the procedure,’ he said, ‘A team of experts including the entire ministry has worked hard and completed it. This test was used to identify the disease suffered by the workers. Friday’s notification said that all these have been canceled. We have not been given a reason as to why this happened. We will discuss this matter with the ministry and move forward.'
He said that the destination country is more interested in infectious diseases and the Nepal government should pay attention to protecting its citizens from the disease. 'Nepali workers who have gone for foreign employment are dying prematurely. Most of the workers are found sleeping in their beds. To protect the workers from this, they should be checked to see if their hearts are healthy,' he said. 'Thousands of workers are going for foreign employment with kidney stones. Hundreds of workers have had to return due to kidney failure. A kidney test should be done to check for stones. HIV tests do not show kidney stones.'
