No x-ray services in 59% upazila health complexes

Nearly 59% of the upazila health complexes do not provide x-ray services to the patients, found a recent study.

Researchers from Department of Public Health and Informatics under Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) conducted the study, titled “Challenges faced by doctors in providing healthcare services in the district”.

“Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked government physicians and nurses to do their duties properly or quit their jobs while visiting the health and family welfare ministry in 2019,” said associate professor of the department Dr Khalequzzaman while explaining the context of the research at a press conference at BSMMU on Monday.

“The health ministry should conduct a survey to find out how many patients go to government hospitals and why doctors are not found present in hospitals at district and upazila levels. If the transferred doctors do not engage in service, put them aside after making them OSDs, we don’t need them. We’ll appoint new doctors,” the PM said at that time.

Based on her instruction the department conducted a research over why the physicians are unwilling to work at district or upazila level, Dr Khalequzzaman explained adding that the research was conducted on randomly selected nine district hospitals and 17 upazila health complexes from all divisions.

According to the researcher, also the principal investigator of the research, they have found that 58.8% of the upazila health complexes could not provide x-ray services. The services are provided in 88.9% of the responded hospitals.

The reason for not being able to provide the services is either not having required equipment or having damaged machineries.

Again, in case of blood transmission, the service is available in 100% of the district hospitals while it is available in 58.8% upazila hospitals.

Only 44.4% of the district hospitals and 11.8% of the upazila level health complexes are providing ultra-sonogram facilities.

They also identified that district hospitals lack manpower in 30% of the authorised medical officer post while it is 63% in upazila hospitals.

Around 51% of the junior or senior consultant posts in district hospitals are vacant right now while the portion is 77% in upazila level. In case of medical officer or assistant surgeon post, the vacant posts are 65% in district hospitals and 38% in upazila hospitals.

Only 20% of the district hospitals and 17.6% of the upazila level hospitals have security guards. The researchers found usable dormitories or quarters for 52.9% of the upazila health care professionals while it is 0% for district level hospitals.

Although researchers pointed out numerous reasons behind the unwillingness of the physicians and the health care professionals to go outside mega cities or medical college hospitals, they largely focused on three major reasons -- insecurity, inadequate living environment and lesser chances for career advancement.

The study made 10 recommendations under five groups for ensuring the facilities including deploying more physicians to fulfill the vacant posts.

Vice Chancellor of the medical university, Prof Dr Sharfuddin Ahmed said, “Now the matter of research should be the reason behind unwillingness of the patients to come to upazila level hospitals. It will give the health authorities more insight about the matter they need to amend.”

Health Minister Zahid Maleque said physicians are the heart of the treatment service system and ensuring a flexible environment is a key for better services.

“The existing problem in transferring physicians has been solved recently and the hospitals are developing better infrastructure for providing healthcare services as well. The security problems would be solved as well,” he assured.

“All we have to keep in mind is that government services are for the people and we need to ensure better services for them,” he added.