Home ›› 21 Dec 2021 ›› Nation
Rangpur Medical College Hospital (RMCH) is unable to provide necessary medical services for patients due to a lack of manpower and equipment, causing suffering to low-income people who largely depend on this public hospital.
During a recent visit to the hospital, this correspondent found the intensive care unit (ICU) – the most important unit of the hospital – in a dilapidated state that offers very poor services to critical patients.
The authorities have to face severe trouble in handling the pressure of patients every day. Many of the patients and their relatives end up spending huge money on receiving ICU treatment at private hospitals even though getting treatment in the ICU of RMCH is free of cost.
Sources of RMCH said four of 10 beds in the ICU unit at RMCH have remained dysfunctional for the last six months as oxygen, gas outlet, and ventilation support for the beds are not working.
The echo-ultrasonogram machine remains out of order for the last two years. The portable X-ray machine and the bio-chemical analyser machine for blood and fluid test have not been functioning for long.
Getting a bed instantly in the ICU for a critical patient is very tough, and it almost depends on luck. At least three or four attendants of the patients become desperate and make hectic efforts to get a bed as soon as one becomes empty.
Rafiq Sarker, a relative of a critical female patient, said he had to shift the patient immediately to a private hospital ICU as he had failed to get a bed in the RMCH ICU. The condition of the patient was critical as her oxygen level was decreasing sharply.
She had been admitted there for 13 days. They had to spend Tk 25,000 per day for bed, oxygen, life support facilities, and medicine while they could have got all the facilities free of cost at RMCH.
Former president of Bangladesh Private Medical Practitioner and family medicine specialist Dr Mofizul Islam Mantu said RMCH must have tertiary-level health care facilities as it is a state-run hospital in the divisional city.
“Units of the hospital should provide all facilities for diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. But the absence of the required number of manpower, machinery and equipment in the hospital has been hampering healthcare services severely.”
He added, “RMCH is a 1,000-bed hospital. But there are support staff, nurses, paramedics, and technicians only for 500 patients. There are also shortages of graduate, post-graduate, and specialised physicians in the hospital.”
Convener of volunteer organisation Janatar Rangpur and civil society member Professor Dr Syed Mamunur Rahaman said patients from eight districts of Rangpur division come to RMCH for health care services and there is a heavy rush of patients every day.
He said it is urgent to increase the number of beds in the hospital, adding the ICU needs to have at least 50 beds.
“More specialised physicians, support staff, and expert technicians have to be recruited. Latest medical equipment and diagnostic machines also need to be installed for better healthcare services,” he added.
Director of RMCH Dr Mohammad Rezaul Karim said there are about 2,000 patients every day in the hospital against 1,000 beds.
“It is essential to increase the number of beds in the hospital as we have to face a rush of both outdoor and indoor patients. We earlier sent letters to the health ministry and directorate, informing them of the overall situation,” he also said.
