Problem-ridden health complex

Health care services at Basail Upazila Health Complex have been seriously hampered for the last few years due to various problems.

The problems facing the 31-bed hospital include shortage of doctors, poor condition of the hospital building, as well as lack of residential facilities for the doctors and staff.

Upazila Health and Family Planning Officer Dr Shefali Khatun said although there are seven junior consultants against 10 posts, four of them are on deputation in other hospitals, adding that five medical officers out of eight posts were appointed at the hospital but two of them are on deputation. Besides, the post of resident medical officer has remained vacant for long, she said. 

Since all the doctors of the hospital live outside the upazila, they remain absent from the hospital most of the time, several relatives of patients alleged. As a result, patients do not get treatment at the emergency department of the hospital, they said.

Sub-assistant community medical officers provide treatment at the emergency department in absence of doctors.

Kanchanpur Union Parishad Member Harun-ur-Rashid said he took his wife to the hospital on July 6 after she was electrocuted, but there was no doctor at the emergency department. A health assistant then referred her to Tangail General Hospital without giving her any treatment, he said.

"When I called the ambulance driver to take my wife to the hospital, he told me that the ambulance was being repaired," he said.

Local Awami League leader Motiar Rahman Gaus and Abdul Mazid of Rashora village also said they did not find any doctor in the emergency department when they took their patients to the hospital recently.

On July 9, some relatives of the patients assaulted two staff nurses at the hospital when they did not get any doctor in the emergency department, they said, adding that the angry people also vandalised the department.

Dr Shefali said although several doctors of the hospital are on deputation and also attached to different hospitals, the other doctors have been trying their best to provide treatment to the patients. 

"Deputation of three of the doctors has been revised. They will attend the upazila health complex three days in a week from Saturday," she said.

Two medical officers who were performing their duties at the two health sub-centres in the upazila were attached to hospitals in Dhaka and Tangail at the direction of the director general's office, Shefali said, adding that sub-assistant community medical officers were providing treatment to the patients at the centres in absence of the doctors.

Shefali also mentioned the poor condition the dormitories of the doctors and staff as well as shortage of rooms in the dilapidated hospital building. These problems were created as construction of the new hospital building, which started in 2006, has not been completed yet, she added.