Reza Mahmud :
Patients and their relatives are crying everyday for a vacant bed to get admission at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital while it has no empty bed for long.
Authorities concerned said people rush to the hospital every day seeking a bed as it is a large facility in the capital for treating covid-19 patients, though there is no vacant seat.
On spot visit on Tuesday it was found that patients’ relatives are repeatedly creating pressures on the officials in the Covid unit of the hospitals Cabin block building.
A relative of one of the patients named Kamrul came from Mirpur-13 found seriously requesting a official sitting behind the glass covered cabin in the admission counter in the ground floor of the hospital.
Replying to a query, Kamrul said, his family member Moushumi Akter (23) was suffering from Covid for days and now her condition is deteriorating seriously.
“She is suffering from critical respiratory problem. Admitting in a hospital is very urgent for her, but we got no positive answer from any facilities we sought a seat for her,” Kamrul said.
It was found that Kamrul was entering the cabin areas where a higher official was requesting him after failing to convince the counter’s person.
After few moments he came back from the cabin areas with utter frustration without getting any positive news.
Within minutes, two persons including an women appeared before the admission counter room and started requesting the officials.
Hearing their conversations it was understood that they were relatives of one critical Covid patient.
The officials suggested them to try other hospitals and keep contact with them ensuring to call them if any bed be emptied tomorrow.
Both the persons found upset as they also tired to get an empty bed in different hospitals for their patients.
Replying to a query, one of them said they were from Banosree in the capital and was seeking a bed for their patient aged 55.
He said that they have ‘no mood’ to answer any other question as they have seriously disappointed and in uncertainty for the patient suffering serious respiratory problem.
In the face of acute bed crises the hospital authority is admitting some patients in its Fever Clinic building.
There are about 50 beds in the Fever Clinic building which are about full of covid patients and they have a plan to increase seats there, officials said.
The fever clinic building has no centrally oxyzen supply system yet, so the authority cannot take critically ill Covid patients there.
So, the seriously sick patients and their relatives returned after making fruitless utmost request to the officials of the hospital.
“Me and our officials are very sad for failing to allot any bed while nearest persons of a patient requesting with humble manners, it is pathetic. All of our 180 general beds and 20 ICU beds are full. If one patient release from a general bed one hundred we see are in struggle to get the vacant seat. It is the hard realities we are facing in recent weeks as the infection are rising terrifyingly,” Brigadier General Dr. Zulfiquer Ahmed Amin, Director of the BSMMU Hospital told The New Nation.
Conditions of patients’ applications for getting admissions were normal till the early March, but the huge pressuring started from mid-March and it is going on without any break.
He said, “In a face of serious pressure and humanitarian crises of the patients, we have started admitting comparatively less critical patients in our Fever Clinic for medical treatment.”
