Reza Mahmud :
Hospitals in the capital are struggling to cope with a surge in new coronavirus cases. Even, the Covid-19 patients with acute respiratory problems are now facing difficulties to secure ICU beds, sources said.
They said that coronavirus patients are on rush to hospitals to get an ICU bed but the authorities in many cases failed to provide that. Patients alleged that though ICU beds remain vacant, the officials of hospitals do not allot them raising various excuses. However, hospital officials said they are now under pressure due to rise in
Covid-19 cases. Even extra pressure also created on ICU beds in both public and private hospitals.
“We are really in dilemma, because many minor ill patients are demanding ICU beds. But we cannot take risks of booking all of our ICU beds because it have to be reserved for more serious patients while the cases are increasing sharply,” said an official of capital’s Covid dedicated government hospitals told The New Nation yesterday preferring anonymity. He, however said, we are allotting ICU beds among the serious ill patients.
“Over the last two months, I’ve received no request for ICU beds. But I’ve been receiving calls over the last several days asking for ICU beds. Most of those who are contracting the disease now are requiring ICU support. Earlier, we’ve seen that only those with comorbidities needed ICU support,” Director-General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof ABM Khurshid Alam said on Sunday.
The DGHS data released on Tuesday showed that there are total 117 ICU beds in 10 Covid dedicated government hospitals in Dhaka where 82 patients were admitted and rest 35 were vacant.
Meanwhile, 1392 patients were admitted in 2381 general beds and 990 beds remained vacant to those hospitals.
Besides, 109 patients get admitted in nine non-government hospitals in the capital. 164 ICU beds and kept 55 beds vacant. Besides, 330 patients have been admitted in 834 general beds and kept 502 beds vacant in those private hospitals. It showed that total 273 seriously sick patients have been admitted in the total
558 ICU beds and 285 beds remained vacant across the country till Tuesday.
Besides, total of 2263 Covid patients have been admitted in total 10,305 beds and kept 8042 beds vacant across the country. Bangladesh has recorded a 67.27 per cent weekly spike in confirmed coronavirus cases.
The number of deaths among the patients has increased by 49.02 per cent in this period, according to the DGHS.
The country recorded another 1,719 new coronavirus infection on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases in the country to 560,887, says DGHS. Besides, DGHS reported another 26 Covid-19 deaths over the last 24 hours (till am Tuesday).
When contacted, Brigadier General Dr. Zulfiquer Ahmed Amin, Director of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Hospital told The New Nation on Tuesday, “We are on huge pressures from patients for allotting beds. But we had no single bed vacant in general or ICU section to allot any patients for last few days.”
He said all of his hospitals, 234 general beds and 16 ICU beds have already been occupied. But serious pressures from patients are on us to allot more beds, but we have no bed vacant to allot them.
