By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Aug. 31: State Minister for Health and Population Umesh Shrestha has said that all the women who receive maternity services at the Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital (PMWH) will get the vaccines against COVID-19.
Addressing the 62nd anniversary of the hospital on Monday, State Minister said that all new mothers would be vaccinated by the hospital.

On the occasion, Minister Shrestha said that preparations were underway to expand service related to maternity and gynecology in all seven provinces.
"It is imperative to expand the women health services across the nation, as many women are dealing with health problems," said State Minister Shrestha.

He insisted that the hospital needed to be developed as a Women Health Care Institute and Gynecology Research Centre. The hospital should demand with the ministry for what it needs and utilise all its resources. The ministry will address its demand, added Shrestha.

At the programme, health secretary Dr. Roshan Pokharel said that the ministry was working to systematise the maternity hospital. The ministry will help the hospital add 700 more beds, said Dr. Pokharel.
Mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya of the Kathmandu Metropolis, pledged to help upgrade the hospital. “The metropolis has already provided 40 ventilators to the hospital and will provide five more once the equipment arrive from China.”

Dr. Sangeeta Kaushal Mishra, director of the hospital, shared that the hospital was planning to establish ‘Human Milk Bank’ facility for the first time in Nepal. The bank will be named as ‘Amrit Kosh’, she said. The hospital will discourage the formula milk and encourage mother’s milk, she added.

On the occasion, Dr. Shree Prasad Adhikari, deputy-director of the hospital, said around 22,000 women take the maternity services annually. Services like OPD, maternity, family planning and safe abortion, safe motherhood, free neonatal and artificial insemination are available in the hospital.

The hospital that had started services on August 26, 1959, on the Day of Shree Krishnasthami with 40 beds, has now 489 beds.
The hospital provides maternity services for COVID-19-infected women from its Kupandole-based building. Around 50-70 women receive maternity services and 1,000 visit its OPD on a daily basis. According to the hospital, 143,229 women visited the hospital for OPD service in the last fiscal year. Among them, 28,598 were admitted to the hospital and 22,014 women had received maternity services.

Similarly, 10,100 women were treated with surgery and 8,108 women deliver their baby through Caesarean section. Likewise, 1,141 received treatment through N-ICU support while 916 women received safe abortion services.
During the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic, 242 women had received treatment through isolation ward of the hospital.