Korea-Nepal Friendship Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal

Nepali people have been appealed to differentiate the hospitals established with South Korean support from the health institutions run by and North Korea.

Such an appeal by South Korean doctors comes following the death of two pregnant women at Ne-Koryo Hospital — a health centre run by North Korea in Damauli, Tanahun, some 150 km west from Capital Kathmandu, — reportedly due to the negligence of a North Korean doctor. Some local people, however, had mistaken the identity of the doctor who attended to the patients and thought that the surgeon was a South Korean doctor.

Dr. Lim TM, a South Korean surgeon at Korea-Nepal Friendship Hospital, said innocent patients who cannot distinguish between the hospitals set up by the two nations are ending up visiting North Korean health centres due to the likeness in their names.

As both the countries use the same name ‘Korea’ despite an unmatched development gap between the two, people around the world sometimes get confused until the real identity is established and this fact is not an exception to common Nepali people too, Dr Lim said.