Make Bagerhat District Hospital fully functional

Our healthcare sector is in complete disarray, with many district- and upazila-level hospitals facing serious gaps in patient care. While upazila health complexes are largely unable to provide essential services to rural patients, district-level hospitals are also often in poor shape, with critical care services absent in many of them. The 250-bed Bagerhat District Hospital is one such facility. According to a report in this daily, the hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has remained non-operational for nearly 11 months, despite being fully equipped. This hospital is the only major public healthcare facility for almost 20 lakh people in the district, yet critically ill patients are being denied life-saving care.

The 10-bed ICU has ventilators, cardiac monitors, infusion pumps, a defibrillator, a blood gas analyser, and oxygen therapy systems. Yet the unit has remained locked since December 2024 following the withdrawal of project-based staff. As a result, critically ill patients are referred to Khulna or Dhaka, increasing treatment costs and health risks. Prolonged disuse also risks damage to equipment.

Equally disappointing is the failure to utilise a Tk 38.28 lakh automatic biochemistry analyser supplied by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in March 2023. Capable of conducting dozens of advanced tests and processing hundreds of samples per hour, the machine has been lying idle due to the lack of installation support from the supplier. Consequently, more than 6,000 patients who seek pathological services at the hospital every month are being deprived of affordable diagnostic tests and are forced to turn to private facilities at a higher cost.

An acute manpower crisis is reportedly at the root of these problems. The hospital currently has only 26 doctors against 59 sanctioned posts, far below the requirement to operate the ICU and other specialised services. This exposes a persistent flaw: infrastructure and equipment are procured without ensuring the human resources and operational planning needed to keep services running.

We urge the health ministry and the DGHS to take immediate steps to restore ICU services at Bagerhat District Hospital by recruiting the required number of doctors, nurses, and support staff. In future, healthcare projects must be planned and implemented comprehensively, with guaranteed staffing and operational sustainability. Public hospitals cannot serve their purpose if life-saving facilities and equipment, procured with public money, lie idle while patients continue to suffer.