The government is going to provide special quarantine allowances for doctors, nurses and hospital staff who are responsible for the treatment of Covid-19 patients at different hospitals across the country.
An official of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said the government will no longer provide accommodation facilities for quarantine for doctor and nurses. Rather, the allowance will be given to those attending hospitals from their homes and manage their own quarantine accommodation.
Health and Family Welfare Ministry sent a proposal to Finance Ministry for special daily allowance for 15 days for doctors and nurses for attending hospital amid the pandemic, the official said.
According to the proposal, a doctor will receive of Taka 2,000 every day for 15 days a month for attending Covid-19 dedicated hospital in Dhaka. Doctors outside Dhaka city will get Taka 1,800.
A nurse working at Dhaka hospitals will get Taka 1,200 per day for 15 days while outside it is Taka 1,000.
Besides, other hospital staff will get Taka 800 in Dhaka and Taka 650 outside Dhaka.
As per the proposal, the number of government health workers engaged in Covid-19 treatment in the country is 23,285. Of them, 5,726 are doctors, 10,044 are nurses and 8,515 are others. If all of them receive the allowance at the prescribed rate, the cost will be Taka 39.50 crore per month.
Health ministry officials said health workers have been allowed to stay in quarantine for 15 days a month at various residential hotels since April following the novel coronavirus outbreak in March.
Till June, the finance ministry had released over Taka 103 crore for their bills in three months – about Taka 34 crore per month. However, the money was not enough to pay all the health workers.
In those three months, Taka 52 crore was spent on the health workers of the Dhaka metropolitan area alone. Yet, many did not get their dues.
If the new proposal is implemented, it will cost slightly over Taka 12 crore monthly for the health workers of Dhaka, which is over Taka 5 crore less than the sum spent per month during April-June.
According to the proposal approved by the Prime Minister last July, the residential hotel rooms were rented for the quarantine of doctors, nurses and health workers engaged in Covid-19 treatment.
Reviewing the bills sought from various hospitals, it was observed that the accommodation arrangements cost the government a large sum of money.
Although an allocation of Taka 103 crore was made during April-June, it was not enough to pay all health workers' bills. The finance ministry expressed its dissatisfaction with the unusually high sum of money they demanded.
Later, accommodation was arranged for them in a few other training centres, including the Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (BIAM), in Dhaka city. The cost for this purpose was about Taka 3,000 per person in a single room, including food.
It may be effective in big cities, but in all cases, it is not possible to ensure 100 percent management and satisfaction.
So, the new proposal has been put forward as an alternative so that health workers can do their own quarantine management.
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