Rapti Academy of Health Sciences in Ghorahi, Dang, has launched a catheterization laboratory, or cath lab, to expand diagnosis and treatment for people with heart-related conditions.
Health and Food Hygiene Minister Nisha Mehta inaugurated the service on October 9, 2026, during the institution's ninth-anniversary program.
A cath lab is a specialized hospital unit where doctors use imaging equipment and thin, flexible tubes called catheters to examine the heart and its blood vessels. Depending on the equipment and trained staff available, such units can perform coronary angiography, which images the arteries supplying the heart to find narrowing or blockages. They can also perform angioplasty and stenting, in which a narrowed artery is opened with a balloon and a small mesh tube is placed to keep it open.
The academy describes itself as a 300-bed tertiary referral hospital serving Dang and surrounding districts in Lumbini Province and parts of Karnali Province, including Rolpa, Pyuthan, Banke, Salyan and Rukum West. The new service is expected to make some forms of cardiac care more accessible in the region and may reduce the need for patients to travel to distant cities. These are expected benefits, not measured outcomes.
At the inauguration, the minister stressed the need to provide quality specialist care closer to where people live and pledged support for the academy’s service expansion. The program also discussed developing the institution into a 400-bed hospital.
