Bardiya, May 14 -- Patients at Bardiya District Hospital have been forced to buy medicines from private pharmacies due to a shortage of free drugs supplied by the government.

The hospital, which serves hundreds of patients daily, has been facing stockouts of essential medicines for the past two months.

On Wednesday, postnatal mother Radhika Lodh of Gulariya Municipality-8 returned without iron tablets, which are normally provided free of cost. She later purchased them from a private pharmacy. Doctors had advised her to take the tablets for 45 days after childbirth.

Another patient, Shamsuddin Gaddi of Gulariya Municipality-11, who visited the hospital with diarrhoea, was also asked to buy oral rehydration solution from outside the hosp...