But the hospital remained partly equipped, in addition to lacking of manpower to address the need of patients. Corruption in hospital management that includes misappropriation of fund for buying equipment has left the hospital only partly functional. Bribe on awarding procurement contracts and recruitment of stall has plagued the hospitals to continue to suffer. A national daily reported quoting patients as alleging that they do not get the minimum indoor and outdoor healthcare from the hospital and blamed negligence of physicians, nurses, and ward boys and scarcity of medical kits for it.
In fact skilled mismanagement is high in running hospitals. But at Mugda Hospital no medical equipment or other support facilities are sufficiently available. Doctors often keep absent and nurses and staff abuse patients and their attendants. Diagnosis equipment found inoperative. But hospital management tells otherwise to put the blame on the government for shortage of doctors and required manpower. They say on average, 3000 patients come to the hospital per day for treatment, in addition to 1200 for diagnosis purpose. The hospital has only 160 physicians to cope with the situation. But insiders say most doctors and staff regularly remains absent. What is more disturbing is that physicians and nurses don’t take patients seriously.
In fact all the government-run hospitals in the capital and all over the country are poorly managed and supplied where most of the fund get misappropriated and grabbed by management officials and suppliers working for the hospitals. Poor oversight and lack of disciplining measures are allowing corruption to eat up major part of the hospital budget. Vested interest quarters are at work from the Health Ministry and Directorate of Health down to hospital management to take up procurement projects and misuse of fund instead of fully equipping the hospitals. Reports galore about such misappropriation keeping the hospitals poor and mismanaged. Similarly the quality of treatment at private hospitals is also very poor while they charge exorbitant fees.
Mugda Hospital is an example of poor management that needs proper attention to turn it into a good hospital. Though set up for patients from the eastern edge of the city, most patients avoid going there and come to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital adding to the crowd. It defeats the very purpose of setting up the Mugda Hospital and we draw the attention of the authorities concern to remove all shortcoming of the hospital to make it a place of good treatment for patients.
