Patients left to suffer

Patients at understaffed government hospitals endured added sufferings during this Eid holidays when most doctors and nurses went on leave.

The Daily Star correspondents witnessed a glimpse of their sufferings, visiting three top government hospitals in Dhaka and Chittagong cities during the three-day Eid vacation from Friday to Sunday.

As outdoor services of all government and non-government hospitals remained closed, pressure at the emergency sections was full, with mostly non-Muslim doctors working in shifts.

In most wards, doctors in the three hospitals last attended patients on Thursday morning before returning on Monday with a few exceptions.

NITOR

Fazlul Haque was brought to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics Rehabilitation on July 17 with serious accident injuries on his right hand.

Doctors had to amputate his hand, but instead of putting him in a post-operative ward, they sent him to a general ward on the ground floor.

On Saturday, the Eid day, The Daily Star correspondents found Haque, 50, writhing in pain in a non-AC ward in the afternoon.

Hauqe said that he complained about the absence of doctors to Nitor Director Prof Md Iqbal Qavi, when he came on the Eid day to monitor if patients were given special food.

"He then called a doctor from the emergency department to attend me. The doctor said they would do the dressing on Monday [yesterday]," said Haque.

But till 2:00pm yesterday, the dressing was not done, as no doctor came.

"I called a nurse and requested her to arrange for a dressing," he told The Daily Star later by phone.

He added that the nurse refused to do it because his wounds were serious and had a possibility of bleeding and therefore it must be attended by a doctor.

Asked about the patient, Administrative Officer Shah Md Saiful Islam said, "This was not supposed to happen. Perhaps the doctors were on rounds in other wards and the patients didn't find them." 

A non-Muslim nurse said the two post-operative wards of the hospital on the first and the third floors were closed during the Eid holidays.

"During holidays, OT patients with closed wounds are usually sent home and those with open wounds are kept at the wards on the ground floor," she said, requesting anonymity as she as not authorised to speak to the media.

In all, Nitor has 160 doctors and 294 nurses. Of them, 24 non-Muslim doctors and 75 non-Muslim nurses were attending about 360 patients admitted to the 500-bed hospital and the emergency medical service seekers during the Eid holidays, hospital sources said.

Contacted, the Nitor director said, "We gave roster duty to non-Muslim doctors and nurses. But in case of an emergency, the Muslims doctors and nurses who are in and around the capital would be called back."

Between 8:00pm on Friday and 4:30pm on Saturday, 36 operations took place at Nitor, which is a little less than in usual times, the sources said.

But the emergency rush was almost the same as in normal times. From 8:00am to 4:30pm on Saturday, 61 patients took emergency care.

Although all Muslim doctors and nurses enjoyed the Eid holidays, lab technicians, operators, ward boys and caregivers were not so lucky.

Rafiqul Islam, who works in the X-ray section, said there were 10 technicians in his section -- all Muslims. "Four have gone on leave and the rest of us are working in two shifts."

DMCH

In Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), the biggest public hospital in the country, both Muslim and non-Muslim doctors worked in shifts.

Umme Salma, doing her FCPS in gynecology, was found attending patients at the emergency section on Friday afternoon.

"We need a huge manpower. So, it is not possible to run the hospital with non-Muslim doctors alone," she said.

On average, 800-plus nurses are on duty on a normal day. During this Eid vacation, 170 non-Muslim nurses took care of about 1,659 patients, said a nurse.

"We even have several Muslim nurses attending patients at neo-natal and hemodailysis wards," she said.

However, Sharukh Khan Pias, 24, lying on the casualty ward on the ground floor, said the last time he saw a doctor was on Thursday morning, that too an intern.

He was shivering with a high fever. His wife Suraiya Akter said he was brought to the DMCH on July 10 after he was shot in the chest and waist by unidentified criminals.

Doctors, however, were seen in the admission wards of medicine department, ICU, CCU, OT and post-operative sections.

Khawza Abdul Gafur, assistant director (administration), claimed they had doctors in wards with serious patients.

CMCH

Three-year-old Esha Akter lay senseless on a bed in the Chittagong Medical College Hospital on the Eid day.

Admitted to the Child Health Ward with fever and breathing problems around a week ago, her condition deteriorated on Saturday morning.

Her father Md Musa said he looked for a senior doctor but found none.

"We were told that consultants or senior doctors would come on Monday," he said.

The on-duty doctor gave her treatment but the parents were not convinced.

"If the senior doctors had been present, we would have been less worried," said Musa.

Visiting different wards, it was seen that specialist physicians were absent from the wards during the three-day vacation.

Contacted on Thursday, CMCH Deputy Director Khorsheda Shirin said non-Muslim doctors, including consultants, would work in shifts during the holidays.

But even the non-Muslim consultants did not visit the Medicine, Neuro Medicine, Child Health, Ear Nose and Throat, Paediatric Surgery, Ophthalmology, Nephrology, Cardiology, Surgery and Neuro Surgery wards during the vacation, patients alleged.

One or two junior doctors were seen in some wards during our multiple visits.

In the Nephrology ward, dialysis was not conducted on Saturday and Sunday. Patients with emergency condition had to go to private clinics for dialysis, sources said.