Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury :
4) It has cost Tk 300 crore to set up 97 PCR laboratories
The price of Bio Rad-De Ox machine, the most expensive RT-PCR machine from the United States, including all duty charges is Tk 25 lakh. It will cost additional Tk 1 crore if Biosafety Level 2 is added. But the ministry has spent Tk 3 core for setting up each lab. Hon’ble Prime Minister, will you not be responsible for all the expenses? The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is eating jackfruit sitting in your yard. Be careful; keep Begum Khaleda Zia’s case in your remembrance.
5) Treatment of every patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is expensive
So it is reasonable to spend Tk 20 thousand per day for each corona patient as it included the expenditures of highly costing Oxygen, all necessary medicines, multiple times diagnosis and progress tests and disposable items. But there is no logical ground to spend average more than Tk 2000 per day for each patient’s diagnosis and covid test as per the rules of the World Health Organization excluding the seat rent in Corona Ward.
The Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital levies the following charges under the social class-based public health insurance for all cost of daily seat rent at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), all used medicines and oxygen, all daily pathology tests and diagnostic tests. No matter how many times the expert physicians see the patient, no additional consultation fee is charged for this. However, in case of multiple organ failure, a patient has to pay separately Tk 30,000 per day as the cost of the imported special fluid used in the CRRT (Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy) machine for treatment.
It is to be noted that a total of Tk 50,000 to Tk 150,000 is charged daily for an ICU bed in a private hospital.
It is necessary to disclose how many beds have been provided with central oxygen line facility in how many district hospitals.
The Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital has provided central oxygen line facility in each of the 250 beds including 10 ICUs. It costs Tk 3 lakh to Tk 5 lakh per month to supply oxygen. We give free oxygen to the patient. The patients don’t pay any charge for oxygen.
6) The members of the armed forces receive salary allowance from the Ministry of Defense. What is the reason for giving them extra allowance?
What to do to prevent corona infection
Without beating or fining the people who go out of home for earnings, such as rickshaw pullers, van drivers, boatmen, shopkeepers on footpaths, buyers and seller people from all walks of life should be made aware of wearing masks in time and maintaining physical distance, not social distance. It is possible with the active support of all newspapers, electronic media, school-college students, imams, priests, politicians and NGO workers.
Secondly, it is possible to move and participate in congregation in the mosque with maintaining a distance of three feet.
Thirdly, two people can sit in a baby taxi and one in a rickshaw. Government incentives will be needed to increase the income of rickshaw pullers. All public transport must be kept running. However, students and scouts need to be deployed at every bus stop to make sure that everyone is wearing mask and half of the seats in the transport are empty. Buses will come and stop at all stops for fifteen minutes in a row.
If one wishes to go to the village house to visit the family on Eid, he/she must do the corona test. If the test is negative, show the report and go home by bus, train or launch. If positive, stay in the city and take treatment. If you go to the village with the disease, your loved ones will get sick and you will also fall into medical crisis. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure the facility of corona testing in three shifts. The goal will be to do one lakh tests every day, at present there are only 35,000 (thirty five thousand) tests daily. The private sector should be charge more than two thousand taka and the government hospital two hundred taka. If Gonosahstho invented antibody tests are approved, the benefits of the public will increase.
(Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury is founder and trustee, Gonoshasthaya Kendra).
—To Be Continued.
