Reza Mahmud :
Covid patient tired of severe condition, is loosing accessibility to hospital beds, as the bed numbers are not increasing in ratio with the increasing number of cases in the country.
As per the data of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the covid positivity rate hiked to 18.94 per cent on Tuesday as a highest mark which was remaining below two percent in February.
The infection rate is increasing alarmingly and broke all the previous record on Monday by infecting 5181 persons in a single day.
On Tuesday, 5,042 Covid cases were recorded in the country.
In this situation, human health experts have given huge importance to increasing hospital beds both general and ICU to meet the extreme needs.
They warned if the hospital beds do not increase, the situation might be worse across the country.
“Beds in Covid dedicated hospitals must be increased sharply. If the government fails to increase hospital beds, especially the ICU beds, the situation might take a serious turn,” said eminent Virologist Professor Dr. Nazrul Islam to The New Nation.
He said, the government has to hike hospitals and its beds with emergency measures to avoid any dangerous circumstances as the infection rate is rising alarmingly.
Sources said, patients are in the state of serious sufferings due to want of a hospital bed in Covid dedicated hospitals in the capital.
Many of them are passing hard times in seeking a bed in hospital doors across the city.
When contacted, Dr Shihab Uddin, Superintendent of Bangladesh Kuwait Moitree Hospital told The New Nation, “There are huge pressure on us to allot a bed, especially ICU beds to patients. But we have a limitation. Number of our bed is limited, but patients and their relatives cannot understand it because of their acute needs.”
He said that the number of ICU beds should be increased, but we have no sufficient manpower to operate increasing ICU beds.
The government data showed that the only four out of 108 ICU beds in the 10 Covid-dedicated hospitals in Dhaka were vacant only.
Besides, on Monday none of the ICU beds was vacant.
The data showed 2127 patients were admitted in general beds of those city hospitals keeping vacant only 334 out of the total 2461 beds.
Besides, only 44 ICU beds were blanked out of 188 private Covid dedicated hospitals in the capital.
Meanwhile, 542 patients were admitted in 928 general beds of those nine private hospitals.
When contacted, Professor Dr. Abul Bashar Mohammed Khurshid Alam told The New Nation, “We have wide plan to increase number of hospitals and beds in the capital. Including Dhaka North City Corporation’s Khilgaon Market make shift hospitals (planned) we have a plan to increase more 2500 beds including about 350 ICU beds to meet the rising of demand.”
He said, there are beds remaining vacant in surrounding areas’ hospitals of Dhaka including Gazipur, Narayangonj, Manikgonj and Cumilla. There are no lack of doctors or anything for the patients. They should not rush to Dhaka to create over pressure on the capitals hospitals.
Data showed, on March 18, DGHS recorded the highest daily infection rate 10.45 per cent in three months as the country showed a trend of single-digit percentage test positivity rate since December 19 last year (10.30 pc).
The country on March 23 registered 3,554 new Covid-19 cases in a single day which was highest infections of the deadly virus in the eight months.
The last time more cases were recorded in a single day was on July 2 last year when 4,019 persons tested positive for the fatal disease.
