Staff crunch leaves Sonagazi Health Complex in shamble

Sonagazi Health Complex, the lone medical centre for about 5 lakh people of the upazila in Feni district, is unable to provide proper medical services due to its manpower crunch and crumbling infrastructures.

Although the health complex was upgraded to a 50-bed one from a 31-bed one in 2014, its manpower, infrastructures and equipment remained unchanged.

According to sources at the hospital, the ceiling plasters of the hospital’s administrative building keep falling off regularly as it was built in 1977.

Patients are provided medical services in shabby structures as people from nine unions and one municipality of the upazila visit it for treatment.

The medical services of its emergency unit and women’s and children’s wards are carried out on the ground floor of the two-storey building due to the space crisis.

Its physicians and staff are working with a sense of insecurity as plasters are falling off from its ceilings, while its walls and pillars have developed cracks and most of its doors and windows got broken.

Sadequl Karim, a doctor at its emergency unit, said the hospital needs to be renovated or it should have a new building to offer better medical services to the residents of the unpazila.

“One of the major problems this hospital faces is the shortage of doctors and other staff. Everybody is overworked,” he bemoaned.

This hospital, he says, sees a footfall of 250-300 patients in its outdoor section on average every day while 60-70 get admitted to the hospital a day. But they have to stay on the floor due to a serious bed crisis, Karima added.

There are 10 doctors against the positions of 19 in the upazila. They are engaged in medical work in five sub-health centers of the upazila. Only two doctors are currently providing treatment at the hospital every day. Medical assistants are seen providing treatment under huge pressure.