PATIENTS are not getting essential medical services at public hospitals, especially at major ones, as crucial and high-tech medical equipment at these hospitals have been lying out of order for months to years. Many major hospitals, including the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Mugda Medical College Hospital, Kurmitola General Hospital, Sir Salimullah Medical College and Hospital (Mitford Hospital), Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital, have piles of unrepaired medical equipment, affecting service delivery to emergency patients. As essential and critical diagnostic and curative services are unavailable due to the unrepaired equipment like X-ray, MRI, CT Scan and Cardiac catheterization machines, low-income-group patients turning to public hospitals find themselves in financial distress because they need to go to private hospitals for availing these medical services.
It is quite obvious that high class medical equipment will not work for forever. Hence the authorities who buy such equipment have to come to an arrangement with the medical equipment suppliers so that they would have to provide after-sale service for 12-14 years, which would help resolve the problem of medical equipment needing repair. This way we would not need to spend additional manpower on the setting up new committees to oversee the functionality of these equipment.
It is the most effective solution but one wonders why it hasn’t been implemented in government hospitals where most of our lower income segment population frequently goes to as a recourse for their health troubles. We know that there are gangs of predators who like nothing better than to seek out these hapless patients to try and lure them to private hospitals where they are charged significantly higher amounts, out of which these gangs are given commissions.
But this should not apply here. Patients from underprivileged socio-economic strata must have the right to access these machines as they can’t pay the higher fees in private hospitals. Thus it is they who need the services the most. We need immediate solutions to these problems or the ultra poor will continue to suffer the most. The administration must give the hospitals the ability to implement the fixing of the machines without recourse to additional red tape.
