Assessment of health-related country preparedness and readiness of Nepal for responding to COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Fact sheet A nation-wide study was conducted to assess the preparedness and readiness of Government of Nepal (GoN) designated COVID hospitals to respond to COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 30 COVID hospitals via face to face and telephonic interviews with focal persons. Among them, telephonic interviews were carried out with focal persons of few unreachable hospitals. A total of 30 COVID hospitals were included in the study, among which Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 hospitals were 15 (50%), 12 (40%) and 3 (10%) respectively. The data was collected during the time period of one month (26 April 2020 to 27 May 2020). All the designated COVID hospitals were included in the study and the response rate was 100%. This fact sheet summarizes the main indicators of designated hospitals related to COVID-19 preparedness and readiness. It will support the GoN/Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) to assess the current status of the hospitals, find the gaps and align the practices and resources for better preparedness and readiness to respond against COVID-19. This study gathered data on general information of the hospitals including 12 domains as described below.