Tangail hospitals lack doctors, nurses
Treatment of patients is greatly hampered in Tangail as the government hospitals in the district are facing acute shortage of doctors, nurses and other staff for quite a long time.
Local sources said, Tangail General Hospital was upgraded to 250-bed one from a 100-bed last year but it is still running with the previous staff strength.
At least 24 posts of doctors out of 50 including six senior consultants, four junior consultants, two residential physicians, a residential surgeon and assistant director (administration) are vacant at the hospital now, hospital sources said.
Besides, a number of posts of nurses, sweepers, technicians and security guards are also lying vacant for long.
The process of upgrading the hospital from 100-bed to 250-bed was completed in 2008. Thirty-six new posts of doctors, nurses, technicians and other categories were created at the hospital on April 30 this year but 28 of them remained vacant.
As a result, the hospital authorities are facing difficulties to run the hospital while the patients are deprived of proper treatment there.
Local sources said, serious road accidents are common on the 40 kilometre busy highway from Mirzapur to Bangabandhu Bridge. Tangail General Hospital struggles to handle the injured when the victims of road accidents are brought to the hospital.
Terming manpower shortage a big problem, Residential Medical Officer (RMO) of the hospital Dr Abdul Hamid told The Daily Star that each doctor has to take the workload of three doctors to tackle the situation. They are working at the indoor, outdoor and operation theatre because of shortage of doctors, he added.
"We usually call the doctors from upazila health complexes of the district to work at the hospital to cope with the emergency situation," the RMO said.
He said, four doctors are supposed to work at the emergency ward but only one doctor has been giving treatment there for the last four months.
The RMO said though the hospital gets supply of necessary food and medicine from the development sector, the treatment is hampered seriously due to lack of manpower.
During a recent visit to Tangail General Hospital, Samedul Miah, 60, a resident of Biswas Betka area in the district town, told The Daily Star that he recently went to the hospital but failed to visit doctor to discuss his problem. "I waited in a long queue of patients for about three hours," he said.
The upazila health complexes of the district are facing acute shortage of doctors. Most of these health centres have only one-third of required manpower, district civil surgeon office sources said.
Bhuapur Upazila Health Complex is running with only three doctors since November last year although there are 20 posts of doctors at the 50-bed hospital.
Contacted, Dr Sujit Kumar Roy, civil surgeon of Tangail, told The Daily Star that it has become difficult to ensure proper treatment at the government hospitals due to shortage of manpower.
"The higher authorities have recently given us assurance of appointing necessary staff including doctors to ensure proper healthcare at the hospitals in the district," he added.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments