The High Court has asked authorities concerned why, despite having a central monitoring system in place, people are still running from one hospital to another for treatment amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The virtual bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim raised the question while hearing a writ petition filed in this regard on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), during the virtual hearing, also informed court the number of ICU beds available for Covid-19 as well as general patients across Bangladesh.
According to DGHS, government hospitals in our country have a total of 733 ICU beds.
Of which total 235 ICU beds in 17 hospitals are dedicated to providing treatment for Covid-19 patients.
Advocate Yadia Zaman joined the hearing on behalf of the writ while Additional Attorney General Murad Reza, accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Amit Talukder, joined the virtual hearing representing the state.
“All activities related to ICU management are being monitored by a control room in DGHS. If a dedicated Covid-19 hospital cannot provide a patient with ICU facilities then the respective hospital contacts the control room. Then DGHS officials contact the nearest hospital with ICU facilities and tell them to prepare an ICU bed for an inbound Covid-19 patient. And this is how the DGHS is managing this task,” Deputy Attorney General Amit Talukder informed the court.
Talking to Dhaka Tribune, Advocate Yadia Zaman, said: “The court told us that there are two other writs filed regarding the same matter. So it will hear all of those and give orders on Sunday.”
Earlier on Monday, the High Court ordered the government to report by Wednesday on the total number of ICU beds in the country both in government and non-government hospitals.
The court also directed that it be informed whether the dedicated hotlines were informing people about the availability of beds for admission in different hospitals.
Dr Abdullah Al Mamun, deputy registrar at BSMMU filed the writ with the High Court on Sunday in this regard.
The writ was filed with the High Court seeking an order for the formation of a central bed bureau to manage hospital beds and ensure proper treatment to people during the pandemic.
The writ also sought a High Court order asking the government to acquire all ICUs of private hospitals to be used in battling Covid-19.
The writ provided a Dhaka Tribune report, published on March 21 titled, “Number of ICU beds insufficient to combat Covid-19 pandemic,” as an annexure to it.
Citing expert opinions, the report had focused on whether Bangladesh was prepared fully to combat the threat imposed by the deadly coronavirus, as things might take an alarming shape in the future.
In line with international standards, a 100-bed hospital should have at least five ICUs. In reality, hospitals in Bangladesh have only 1,169 ICU beds (432 govt, 737 private) in total against a population of 161,356,039 people, the report said.
Moreover, when it comes to the number of general beds, the country has only 141,903, which translates to only eight (8.7) beds for every 10,000 Bangladeshis, the report added.
Citing DGHS data, the report said Bangladesh only has 1,034 Coronary Care Unit (CCU) beds, which is significantly disproportionate to its population.