CHITWAN, July 9 -- Som Kumari Pandey, 80, was rushed to Bharatpur Hospital after suffering from acute asthma attack on Friday. The health workers at the hospital asked her to come back the following day to undergo an echocardiography. But when she checked back at the hospital on Saturday, she had to return without getting the test done because the hospital remains "closed" on Saturdays.

Som Kumari went back to the hospital on Sunday again only to find the doctor had gone on a holiday and hence she would have to go elsewhere to get her test done.

Her son, Dipak Pandey, took her to a private hospital on Monday for the cardiac echo test. "The hospital services were closed on Saturdays. We went to the echocardiography unit on Sunday again, ...