As government plans to purchase a private medical college, the members of the Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) has asked for two months’ time to reach a decision on the matter through their general assembly.

At a meeting chaired by Health Secretary Dr Senendra Raj Upreti on Tuesday, officials of the MMIHS said they are ready to hand over the property to the government but consent from their members is essential. The MMIHS is run by the Nepal Health Care Co-operative Limited (NEHCO-Nepal) where a majority of the 2,434 members are cadres of the CPN-UML. The chairman of the NEHCO is UML lawmaker Rajendra Pandey. The previous government led by KP Sharma Oli had agreed to acquire the MMIHS during negotiations with Dr Govinda KC, while he was on hunger strike for the eighth time. Under the agreement, the government-owned NAMS would purchase the property of the MMIHS. It was agreed that no new

medical colleges will be established in the Valley for the next 10 years.

Dr Bansidhar Mishra, former health minister and vice-chairman of the cooperative, said they would hold the general assembly of the cooperative in the second week of October. “We have also floated two options-either change the name of NAMS as Manmohan Adhikari NAMS or establish the MMIHS as an autonomous university,” said Dr Mishra, a UML lawmaker. “Since a moratorium has been set on establishing medical schools, we will be happy to sell it to the government as long as it commemorates our visionary leader Manmohan Adhikari.”

While the property was valued at around Rs7 billion, the MMIHS has a debt totalling Rs3.5 billion—owed to banks and other stakeholders.

Dr Ganesh Gurung, Vice-chancellor of the NAMS, said they have decided to hold

the assembly in the next two months and sort out the issues.   

The MMIHS had long been trying to acquire affiliation to run MBBS classes. However, it was denied affiliation by the institutes, including Institute of Medicine of the TU and Kathmandu University, denied it affiliation. It then tried to run the institute autonomously by presenting a bill to this end before Parliament. The Manmohan Adhikari Academy of Health Sciences-2015 bill, however, attracted vehement protest from Dr KC and other civil society members. The bill is yet to be recalled.