When the hospital could injure you

A picture published on the front-page of The Daily Star on Monday caught our attention as a symbol of the sorry state of our healthcare system. The picture shows an elderly patient sitting on a hospital bed amidst chunks of plaster debris strewn around him, after part of the ceiling in the ward collapsed, injuring him. It happened at the Kachua Upazila Health Complex building in Bagerhat, Khulna. The 84-year-old was already sick when the accident occurred—having been admitted to the hospital with respiratory complications—and was lucky to have survived the impact. What is upsetting here is that a man could have died because of a problem that had nothing to do with his health or his treatment. It is a problem that most public, and even private, hospitals and health complexes in our country suffer from: lack of "care" in the healthcare system, the nonchalant routineness and apathy with which patients are generally dealt with. The Kachua incident is but one outcome of that apathy. 

This is as much an attitudinal problem as a structural one. Many public hospitals and health complexes are located in buildings that are either old, or dilapidated, or bereft of necessary facilities and equipment. Often we come across reports related to public hospitals suffering from lack of equipment or staff or other structural and non-medical issues that remain unaddressed year after year, thanks to lack of budget and mismanagement. A critical rethink about this state of affairs is long overdue. The health ministry has a big role to play in this: it can undertake a countrywide assessment of at-risk hospitals, list their problems including safety issues, and solve them on a priority basis. Budget is no doubt an issue for the expected reforms but so is proper allocation and management of funds. Are there not budget allocations for maintenance and repair of such buildings? The government cannot turn a blind eye to the need for healthcare reforms any longer.