PATAN: Minister for Health and Population, Mohan Bahadur Basnet, has said good practices of the Ministry should be continued despite the change in leadership.

While launching a mobile app ‘Mero Poshan Sathi Mobile App’ and a digital library and resource center in Lalitpur today, the Minister stressed the need to break the culture of discarding good practices and plans whenever there is a change in the Ministry leadership. Such a trend leads to significant wastage of budget and resources.

He claimed that the government presented noticeable progress in increasing citizens’ access to basic healthcare services in three months. Over 800 employees who had gathered in the central capital on deputation have been sent to the respective working stations, according to the Minister.

He assured of further progress in the next three months. “Good initiatives should be started by ourselves,” he said.

As he stressed, access to quality healthcare, education, and food are the constitutional rights of the citizens, the Minister pressed the need to promote health awareness among the citizens nationwide. He hoped that the launching of the App would be useful in making people realize that ‘prevention is better than cure’.

Ministry Secretary Dev Kumari Guragain said,”A healthy mother and a healthy child are needed for healthy citizens,” adding that the mobile app and the digital center would be useful to make an advancement toward the building of a healthy community.

The initiative is significant in terms of implementing the citizen’s right to health, it is said.

It is said the app is meant to provide information of food of nutritional value available within the home to expectant and new mothers.

Director General of the Department of Health Services, Dipendra Raman Singh said the app was expected to add a new dimension to the health sector while the director of the Family Welfare Division under the Department, Dr Bibek Kumar Lal, said the digital library and the resource center was prepared with the support of health professional and researchers.