Bir Hospital

Bir Hospital is the oldest and one of the busiest hospitals in Nepal. It was established in July 1889 by Bir Samsher Janga Bahadur Rana. It is located at the center of Kathmandu city. The hospital is run by the National Academy of Medical Sciences, a government agency.

The hospital provides high quality medical and surgical treatments to people from all across the country. Many patients from the rural areas come to this hospital to get free treatment. It current has a capacity of 458 beds. Some of the county's top doctors work in this hospital.

Facilities

Nephrology

Nephrology service in Nepal started at Bir Hospital. Though over 40 kidney biopsies are done every year, due to lack of well trained manpower in the field of renal histopathology, glomerular diseases cannot be easily diagnosed with accuracy. Again, IgA nephropathy also remains undiagnosed. Hence, training a renal histopathologist and a histopathology technician is found to be the most important task for the hospital in order to provide accurate service to the patients.

Disaster Response

The hospital has one of the best disaster response team in the country. Vast majority of disaster and mass casualty victims are treated either free or with minimal charges. Disaster situations faced mostly are from natural causes or road traffic accidents. The hospital's disaster management plan was used first in 1988 following a stampede incident in the national stadium in Kathmandu.

Funding

The yearly budget of NRs 27 Crore (About US$ 4.1 million), two third of which is funded by the government. government [ [http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2007/jul/jul30/news05.php Nepalnews.com Mercantile Communications Pvt. Ltd ] ] The hospital has been facing financial difficulties for many years now. The lack of adequate funding is the major problem faced by this hospital.

Despite the rising costs at other hospitals, it has not hiked its fees. To help in the financing of the hospital expenses, it runs a medical school, which conducts post-graduate medical, surgical and other specialists training and also runs bachelor's level in nursing. [ [http://www.anmf.net/projects/2003projects/02bir001appeal.htm Bir Hospital Appeal] ] [ [http://cnserver0.nkf.med.ualberta.ca/cn/Sisters/Images.htm Images from Bir Hospital lab facilities in both histopathology and tissue typing] ] .

ee also

*List of hospitals in Nepal

References