Massive dearth of ICU beds

With bulk of the population unable to afford treatment of life threatening ailments in private medical hospitals, their fate is decided largely by luck when it comes to availing intensive care unit (ICU) facilities in public hospitals. That there are only 80 ICU beds available in the seven major public hospitals nationwide catering to the country's 160 million citizens is absurd. As per international standards, in a hospital, the ratio between total number of beds and beds in its ICU should be 20 to 1, which translates into five beds for a 100-bed hospital.

The Dhaka Medical College Hospital with 2,600 beds is planning to add another 12 beds to its ICU wing, which still leaves it horrendously short of requirement. The situation is much worse in the general hospitals outside Dhaka. With private hospital ICUs charging anywhere between Tk 15,000 and Tk 100,000 per day, most people are left in the lurch when a loved one falls seriously ill. We take some comfort in the fact that the government is in the process of expanding ICU facilities in all the general hospitals.

Added to the shortage of ICU beds, public hospitals have been suffering from an acute lack of trained manpower to operate the ICUs. It does not say much about a hospital which has to borrow doctors, nurses and staff from other departments to keep these units in operation. Planning for health services is one area that cannot be put off and we hope the ministry will take immediate measures to increase the number of ICU beds and run the ICU units more efficiently.