Selim Reza, Tanvir Ahmed, Sirajganj :
Belkuchi Upazila Health Complex is running with acute shortage of specialist doctors, nurses, inadequate medical equipment and others supporting staff.
Though the hospital has been upgraded to 50-bed, it is beset with multifaceted problems.
For this reasons local people are derived of proper treatment and they are compelled to go to Sadar Hospital, 25 km far away from this Upazila or any private clinic. But the sufferers those who are poor can hardly afford to get medical treatment as they desire only for high expense.
“Authority upgraded this hospital 50 bed from 31, on August 2016 but due to shortage of doctors, nurses and inadequate medical equipments we fail to serve the patients of this locality. 10 posts for specialized doctors including surgery, medicine and gynecology are still vacant for few years. It is now in urgent need of consultant physicians for all departments including medicine, surgery, pathology, cardiology, ENT, ophthalmology and dentistry. The operation theatre has also remained inactive for several years.
There is also shortage nurse, ward boys, security guards, cleaners and drivers”, said the resident medical officer Dr. Kamrul Hasan.
He also said, “As there is no specialized doctor, we very often refer critical patient like accident or stroke to others hospital for better treatment. But most of the time those patient expire on the way. If there were specialized doctors and others supporting medical equipments we can easily save their valuable lives”.
“Only 7 doctors are giving medical service near about 350 outdoor patients per day which is a gigantic task to ensure quality treatment for every one. They can hardly allot few minutes for each patient to control the crowd”, said Dr. Shakhawat Hossain, serving as emergency consultant. Besides his schedule duty, has to also manage those patients sufferings with Tuberculosis(TB) at the same time.
Rezaul Karim, a rickshaw puller broken his lag in an accident came here for X-ray but can’t as the x-ray machine is out of order more than 8 years. Like Rezaul, the local inhabitants of this upazila can not get opportunity of X-ray with cheap cost. Being poor they can not expense 600-700 hundred taka for imaging test at private clinic.
“Cost of imaging at private clinic is three or four times higher than the govt. hospital,” said Nargis Ara, a patient of chest pain. As there is shortage of cleaner, the environment of wards is beyond description. Bad smell and odor is all over here and there including the presence of cats that sometimes snatch patients’ diet. Besides, substandard foods are served to the patients, with inadequate supply of water for drink and toilet. The attendance of patients has to collect water from tube-wells beneath hospital building”, she also added.
Forida Begum another IPD patient said, “The behavior of nurses are not satisfactory, they very often behave rudely with us in any silly issue. They cannot even change bed cover when it becomes unusable. The condition of the patient becomes terrible when the electricity supply collapse as there is only one tiny generator machine though which the authority fails to fulfill the demand of electricity.
Resident Medical Officer Dr. Kamrul Hasan also said to this reporter that ” about 4 lakh people of all classes depend on this health complex for their medical treatment. But we failed to serve them adequate health care service. They are deprived of their basic need for multifaceted shortcomings of this health complex indeed.”
Between the two ambulances, one is out of order and the condition of other’s is very poor. In an emergency case hospital authority cannot provide ambulance more than one patient. For this reason the poor people compels to hire a private ambulance spending more money.
Admitting the acute shortage of doctors, staff and other logistics, Civil Surgeon of Sirajganj Dr. Shekh Mohammad Munzur Rahman said, “We have already informed the higher authorities to solve the problems as soon as possible”.
