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Health services in Shariatpur continue to struggle for a long time due to a severe manpower crisis in the district’s seven upazilas.
At present, some 115 doctors are working against 169 posts at different health institutions, including hospitals, health complexes and health centres across the district.
In this situation, the six government hospitals in the district are operating with a shortage of 54 doctors in total.
The grim picture came up after The Business Post collected data from the district civil surgeon’s office and visited several health complexes in the region.
Not only were these hospitals understaffed, but also lacked the necessary resources needed to ensure quality healthcare services for the public.
Although the government had built oxygen plants in most of these hospitals, however, these plants remain unusable due to a lack of flow meters at the hospital.
Thus, these hospitals are unable to provide ICU (intensive care unit) facilities for patients.
Apart from that, it taking longer than usual for the hospital to deliver different test results for Covid-19 patients due lack of manpower in relevant departments.
The 100-bed Shariatpur Sadar General Hospital has been operating with only 26 doctors when it needs 41 doctors as a prime healthcare facility in the district headquarters.
The hospital authority said they could only assign two doctors to treat outdoor patients.
The rest five hospitals, the 50-bed Upazila Health Complexes in Zanjira, Naria, and Bhedarganj Gosairghat, and Damudya, upazilas of the district operate 89 doctors against 124 designated posts, leaving 39 posts vacant.
Patients who have a critical health condition are forwarded to the Shariatpur Sadar General Hospital regularly from other hospitals in the district. However, these patients are suffering a lot due to the shortage of manpower and resources.
The 250-bed hospital operates with eight nebulizers, 60 oxygen cylinders, and ten flow meters, which is not sufficient to treat the large number of patients they receive.
The hospital has an ultrasonography machine, but it remains inoperative as no technician has been appointed yet while the lone outdated ECG machine has gone out of order, said Dr Munir Ahmed Khan, caretaker of the hospital.
“We are facing huge challenges every day in continuing our operations with such limited manpower and resources. We have sent a letter to the Health Ministry in this regard, but we are yet to receive a reply from them,” said Dr Munir.
Addressing these issues, SM Abdullah Al Murad, civil surgeon of Shariatpur, told The Business Post that an oxygen plant has been installed at the hospital to facilitate the Covid-19 patients better.
“We have sent a proposal to the ministry to build an ICU at the hospital. We are working to alleviate the other problems, which will be solved soon,” added the civil surgeon.
