No room for burn patients at CMCH

Burnt patients are under treatment on the floor of Chittagong Medical College Hospital. PHOTO: STAR

Several burn patients were found lying on the floor on Friday outside the surgery wards (24, 26, 27) and the paediatric ward where the burn patients undergo treatment as there is no separate unit for them at the CMCH, the lone tertiary level hospital in greater Chittagong.

As the dry season draws nearer the doctors concerned start getting shuddered to think of the difficult task of rendering treatment to burn patients, who mostly report at this time of the year, at the hospital that badly needs a separate burn unit.

The recent worst-ever factory fire that claimed lives of over 60 workers and injured about 100 at KTS Garments on February 23, reminded everybody of the need of a burn unit at CMCH.

Dr Sharif Hasan, the only plastic surgeon of the hospital, said the burnt patients need special cares and treatments, which only an individual burn unit can provide.

"Usually a severely burnt patient looses huge fluid (mainly water) and this has to be made up through equal quantity of fluid from outside within 24 hours," Dr Hasan said.

"But in absence of a burn unit there is no scope to measure the amount of fluid a burn patient looses," he said, adding, "As such, supply of fluid made on the assumption might sometimes lead to the death of a patient."

Removal of bandages without soaking them with sterilising liquids or pastes (IV paste) during dressing by the unspecialised surgeons and nurses, causes the burn patients suffer unbearable pain.

Due to intolerable pain of burning, the wounds of a burnt patient often remain uncovered threatening transmission of germs among other surgery patients.

"It forces us to keep a poor burnt patient outside the general surgery wards, mostly on the floors in a most unhygienic condition, and have his or her injuries worsened or infected in a quicker rate, said Dr Sharif.

"So, it is essential to set up urgently a burn unit with 24-hour Operation Theatre (OT), laboratory, ICU, anaesthesia and other facilities to render treatment and lessen suffering of the patients at the hospital," he said.

The KTS fire victims were sent to the ICU and given OT facilities as the Prime Minister ordered to take care of them. Otherwise, a burnt patient could hardly think of availing such facilities at CMCH in the normal time, said the surgeons at the hospital.

The Ministry of Health approved a proposal for setting up a burn unit at the hospital in 2001, sources at the CMCH said.

A Spanish donor agency was also keen to provide financial assistance for the project, which has failed to get nod from the present government reportedly on the plea of room crisis at the hospital, sources added.

Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Sheikh Hasina during her visit to CMCH on March 1 after the KTS factory fire also enquired about progress of the project taken by her government.

She asked the hospital authorities to try to know the fate of the project, which required to be revived.

CMCH Assistant Director Dr Ismail Amanullah said they sent several letters to the ministry concerned in this regard. But they are yet to get any response.