The outdoor department of Dhaka Mahanagar General Hospital, near the Babubazar Bridge, is always crowded with patients, many of whom go there for Covid vaccines these days. But the hospital’s insides tell a different tale. For six years, the surgery department of the Dhaka South City Corporation-run hospital has remained closed. With its 50 beds gone, the 150-bed hospital is virtually a 100-bed facility now. At the early phases of the pandemic, the Covid-dedicated hospitals were given ICU beds by the health directorate. But due to shortage of physicians and other staff, it could not be started.
In July last year, the gynaecology department without a well-equipped surgery department carried out more than 200 surgeries, minor and major. To treat Covid patients, the hospital got five of its own Intensive Care Units (ICU) in October 2020. Then in April last year, it got 15 High Dependency Units (HDU). However, neither of them is yet to start operation. Hospital authorities say they have requisitioned necessary staffers for the ICUs and HDUs.
Despite having 5 ICUs and 15 HDUs, none of them is operational due to a lack of staffers — the same problem that plagues every department of the hospital. Though it’s supposed to have 31 doctors, 15 of those posts are currently vacant. Moreover, five of the active doctors are only here on a temporary basis. But since all of these doctors are working at the outdoor department, patients admitted to the hospital aren’t getting their due treatment. With such a staff crisis, it’s no wonder that the hospital cannot deliver services well enough.
We do urge the DSCC to focus on the hospital by utilising its potential by recruiting necessary staffers. When the country’s healthcare facilities are suffering from insufficient infrastructure, the hospitals have all these. So, why doesn’t the DSCC recruit enough manpower? Making the hospital service as profitable, the DSCC can both serve the city dwellers and earn. We cannot afford the death of a hospital for the dearth of authorities’ attention in this pandemic.
