Govt’s haste in transferring 1,239 doctors to Covid units

The government on Sunday and Monday, through various circulars, directed 1,239 doctors from medical colleges to join different Covid units at public hospitals and upazila health complexes across the country. Although it is never too late to take necessary action to fight the nation's ongoing Covid-19 crisis, we, along with the country's doctors, cannot help but wonder if this decision could not have come sooner, and also in a more planned and thought-out manner.

The health ministry's lack of proper planning and various scandals involving corrupt officials during the pandemic have had catastrophic consequences so far. Now, in the face of the worst surge in the country's Covid-19 cases and deaths, the Health Services Division (HSD) seems to be scrambling to find a way to deal with this. But how much forethought has really gone into their latest solution of relocating more than a thousand doctors countrywide in one fell swoop?

First, there are several issues about the list of doctors itself. For instance, the secretary general of Bangladesh Medical Association reportedly complained that the issued transfer orders did not mention the designations or service codes of the doctors. Already the list had to be amended to exclude the names of three doctors who had passed away—such as Dr Jibesh Kumar Pramanik of Bogura's Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College, who had died from the virus in January but instructions were given for his immediate shifting to Mohammad Ali Hospital as per the faulty list.

More worryingly, it seems the HSD itself is not aware of what the job of a medical college professor is. Otherwise, how could a professor and ICU in-charge of the Cumilla Medical College Hospital (CMCH) have been transferred to work in a Covid unit elsewhere, with total disregard for the operation of the ICU unit at CMCH? Baffling as it is, in a report by this daily, a director (admin) at the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said that health ministry officials might have made this blunder assuming that doctors in medical colleges only teach students, when, in reality, they also dispense their services to patients at the college hospitals.

We urge the government and the health ministry to have a solid plan at hand before making such sweeping decisions about something as volatile as the country's Covid-19 crisis. As doctors predict, such a sudden and large-scale transfer of human resources will disrupt the already-crumbling healthcare system. While we hope against hope that this decision will work out to curb the pandemic to some extent, the health authorities must have more forethought in the future before implementing such decisions. The government, meanwhile, must ensure that all health workers, including those who are being transferred, are given all the protection gear, safety training and facilities necessary to ensure their safety while dispensing their duties.