Dr Govinda KC, Nepal's veteran campaigner for cleaner medical education, was flown from Ilam to Kathmandu by Nepali Army helicopter on the morning of Monday, November 2, during his 25th hunger strike, after doctors reported his blood glucose had fallen to about 35-36 mg/dL, along with an irregular heartbeat and rising acetone in his urine.
Source: ICN News
NewsDoko, reporting the same evacuation on Monday, said a Nepal Army helicopter was dispatched to Ilam following an urgent request from Ilam Hospital and the Koshi Province health authorities, and that regional health officials approved the emergency air evacuation to the capital because Ilam lacks the tertiary ICU facilities his condition requires. Attending physicians warned that continued fasting at these levels poses an immediate threat to his life, potentially causing organ damage or coma.
Source: NewsDoko
Ilam Hospital had described KC's condition as life-threatening a day earlier, on the fourth day of the fast. Medical superintendent Dr Amitabh Thakur said it had reached a critical level, according to reporting by OnlineKhabar and Setopati summarised by Nepal Wire. KC, who has type 2 diabetes, was admitted to Ilam Hospital around 8 p.m. on Saturday after his condition worsened; tests showed his blood glucose falling through 67 and 47 to 36 milligrams per decilitre, his blood pressure at 100/60, blood oxygen between 92 and 96 percent, and an ECG occasionally showing abnormal heartbeats. Dr Mahesh Acharya, one of the treating doctors, said a urinary tract infection had also worsened. Thakur said the hospital tried to give KC glucose but he refused it.
Source: Nepal Wire (Setopati / OnlineKhabar / Nagarik)
The hospital wrote to the federal Ministry of Health and the Koshi Province government seeking help to arrange further treatment, and Koshi Province Health Secretary Dr Kritipal Subedi visited Ilam Hospital on Sunday to meet the superintendent and treating doctors. Setopati reported Subedi's position that none of KC's demands is the province's to meet.
Source: Nepal Wire (Setopati / OnlineKhabar)
KC began the fast on Thursday, October 29, at Narayan Temple in Ilam. Among his demands are that the government scrap a decision letting Shahid Dasharath Chand University of Health Sciences in Geta start MBBS and nursing programmes without the staff or infrastructure the law requires, run the Geta teaching hospital at full capacity first, and enforce the rule reserving at least 75 percent of seats at publicly funded medical colleges for scholarship students. He has also demanded reversal of the decision to scrap the Bardibas Medical College project in Madhesh Province. KC has argued that keeping the Geta hospital running below capacity forces patients in Sudurpaschim Province to travel to Nepalgunj, Kathmandu or India for treatment.