News and Events

Progress in planning maintenance for health facilities

As a result of the planned maintenance strategy developed for health facilities in May 2007, the budget allocated for this essential work has been more than doubled for this financial year. However, it still falls far short of the money needed to fulfil every aspect of the plan and ensure all buildings receive the maintenance needed. In order to deal with this limitation in a strategic way and make the best use of the money available, the Management Division of the Department of Health Services, with SSMP support, developed a series of scenarios as a means of prioritising the work needed. Through an iterative process they worked through the six scenarios, finally arriving at a workable solution covering:
 
Ø         Preventative maintenance for all buildings (budgeted at 0.5% of the total cost of the building). This is an essential cost saving measure that prevents buildings deteriorating to the point where they require more expensive work or become non-functional.
Ø         Minor repairs and maintenance (budgeted at 0.75% of the cost of the building). As above this avoids more damage and cost occurring later.
Ø         Major repair and maintenance only for main service areas (such as emergency care, operation theatres) of all district hospitals and for health posts and primary health care centres in the hills, since alternatives to a non-functioning local health facility are harder to reach in the hills.
Ø         No major maintenance work will be done for existing buildings at sites where new construction is under way to replace these old buildings, as this constitutes a waste of funds.
 
This is the first time such a carefully planned strategic approach has been used for building maintenance, and it is hoped that this will ensure that health facilities remain as functional as possible.

29/09/2008 Ashima Shrestha SSMP