Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder and trustee board member Zafrullah Chowdhury in a discussion on Thursday said that Bangladesh was yet to face the peak of COVID-19 infections as it would infect more people next month.
He said that COVID-19 was now spreading to villages but rural patients were not being identified for lack of testing facilities.
‘The government is chasing a black cat in a dark room,’ he replied when asked about the government response to the COVID-19 calamity.
GK organised the event at its Nagar Hospital in Dhanmondi marking Zafrullah’s COVID-19 recovery.
Noted freedom fighter Zafrullah said that the country’s health care system had collapsed and people wouldn’t get treatment unless it was reformed.
Zafrullah said that he was the ‘luckiest COVID-19 patient of the country’ as prime minister Sheikh Hasina allocated a bed for him at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital while Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia sent fruits for him.
He expressed his deepest gratitude to the country’s people for supporting him and praying for his recovery.
‘It is the second time after 1971, I have felt the depth of people’s love for me,’ he said.
Zafrullah, also an opposition political combine Jatiya Oikya Front leader, said that the treatment cost in Bangladesh was very high but that should not be the case in the existing reality.
Zafrullah went on that he recorded his treatment cost in order to understand how much COVID-19 treatment took in Bangladesh.
GK employees read out Zafrullah’s written statement in which he commented that the privatisation
of health care services and people’s misconception about medicines raised the treatment cost in Bangladesh.
He demanded a mobile-court drive and exemplary punishment for those responsible to stop wrongdoings in the health sector.
On behalf of Zafrullah, his physician Brig Gen (ret) Mamun Mostafi said that Zafrullah had health insurance with Gonoshasthaya Kendra.
His family was a 5th grade beneficiary of the health insurance. Dr Zafrullah needed Tk3.5 lakh to four lakh for his treatment, he read.
Zafrullah used a cabin that charged Tk 17,000 per day, including all medicines, doctors and oxygen, for which a private hospital charged Tk 1 to 1.5 lakh daily.
Dr Mamun read out Zafrullah’s worries over the cost as the country’s common people hardly could afford that.
JOF’s office chief Jahangir Alam Mintu moderated a discussion on the national budget before the event where Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research director Binayak Sen spoke among others.
JOF leader and Nagarik Oikya convener Mahmudur Rahman Manna urged the government for deploying the army to tackle the COVID-19 situation.
Dhaka University law professor Asif Nazrul said that the government was joking with the human life in this time of the pandemic.
Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association chief executive Syeda Rizwana Hasan said that people did not want mega projects like metro rail and Padma Bridge at this time of pandemic rather they now wanted hospitals and healthcare.
‘Free COVID-19 test is a must for all,’ she said.
Ganosamhati Andolan chief-coordinator Zonayed Saki said that the government should take the responsibility for the livelihood of the needy.
He sought the health care system under monitoring of a separate commission and a special budgetary allotment for combating COVID-19 this time.
Dhaka University Central Students Union vice-president Nurul Haque Nur urged the government to permit Gonoshasthaya Kendra for marketing COVID-19 testing Rapid Dot Blot Kit.
