Inpatients allege service delay at 3 public hospitals

Many of the inpatients in three public hospitals of the capital suffered amidst the absence of most of the doctors and nurses during the nine-day Eid-ul-Fitr vacation for public servants which began on July 1.

They alleged that they did not get basic services on time, including dressing for injuries or administering of saline. Failing to avail such forms of treatment, some patients said to have bribed hospital staff for services which are meant to be provided free of cost.

Two security guards of a fabrics factory of Sonargaon in Narayanganj were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital's (DMCH) burn unit on Eid day after they suffered burns in a cylinder blast.

“Emergency doctors provided creams and bandaged the burnt parts of their bodies,” Mizanur Rahman, who brought the two to the hospital where they were admitted that day, told this correspondent yesterday evening.

They were shifted to the general ward yesterday morning but there was no doctor there the whole day and they were in the dark about the next course of action, he said.

“Dressing was done on one, but not the other...We went to the nurse. She asked us to go to the emergency department. We went to the emergency doctor in the afternoon but the on-duty doctor asked to wait for doctors who would come tomorrow at 9:00am,” Mizanur said.

According to patients in DMCH's burn unit, there were very few doctors available since the Eid vacation started. When the nurses were approached, they suggested seeing the emergency unit doctors, who did not cater to issues other than major ones, they said.

Seven-year old Umme Maria, who suffered a fracture on her left leg in a road accident in Faridganj of Chandpur on Wednesday, was rushed to the emergency department of the National Institute of Traumatology & Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (Nitor).

Her uncle Muktar Hossain told this correspondent yesterday evening that she was admitted that day and he paid Tk 1,000 before she was administered a bag of blood and the injury was bandaged on an emergency basis.

“A doctor was scheduled to give a plaster (cast) on her fracture today but has not done so yet,” he said.

Muktar said Maria was suffering from immense pain but a nurse said they would give the plaster cast on time. “This created uncertainty about her treatment,” he said.

A rickshaw puller, admitted at Nitor after suffering a fracture on his leg in a road accident on Monday, said a dressing for the wound was scheduled to be given on Wednesday.

“The staff who came for the dressing demanded Tk 500. He did not provide the dressing as I could not pay him,” he told The Daily Star yesterday evening.

A staff at an operating theatre at Nitor told this correspondent that they performed surgeries for all emergency cases on time but regular ones of inpatients were delayed due to a shortage of doctors.

This correspondent found similar scenarios visiting different wards of DMCH, Nitor and Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital.

Contacted, DMCH Assistant Director (administration) Abdul Gafur said there was no problem in providing services at emergency units or for inpatients during the holidays.

He claimed that there were doctors and nurses available at all “important wards”, including the emergency department. “There was no report of any major problem,” he said.

The Suhrawardy hospital's director, Prof Uttam Kumar Barua, said although some of the hospital staff were on leave, services were provided unhindered. The director and a joint director of Nitor did not receive calls when contacted for comment.

The three hospitals' personnel said services were provided mostly by non-Muslim doctors, nurses or other staff as was the case during Eid vacations.

According to the nursing section of DMCH, there were some 200 non-Muslim nurses who were on duty during the vacation while the section has a total of 900 nurses.

Usually, there are over 3,000 inpatients at the hospital and there were 1,700-2,000 during the vacation.

Health ministry officials said the ministry for the first time had opened a control room to ensure emergency health services during the Eid holidays.