Sonagazi Upazila Health Complex, the lone medical centre for about 500,000 people in the upazila under the Feni district, is failing to provide adequate medical services owing to its manpower crunch and crumbling infrastructures.
The capacity of the health complex was upgraded from 31-bed to 50-bed in 2014. However, its manpower, infrastructure and equipment remained unchanged.
According to sources at the hospital, the ceiling plasters of the hospital’s administrative building are falling off regularly, as it was built in 1977.
Patients are provided medical services in shabby conditions despite a large number of people from nine unions and one municipality visiting the hospital every day.
The emergency unit, women’s ward, and children’s wards are all located on the ground floor of the two-story building due to the space crisis.
Its physicians and staff are working with a sense of insecurity as plasters keep falling off its ceilings, while its walls and pillars have already developed cracks and most of its doors and windows are broken.
Sadequl Karim, a doctor at the hospital’s emergency unit, said the hospital needs to be renovated or should be shifted to a new building in order to offer better medical services to the residents of the upazila.
“One of the major problems this hospital faces is the shortage of doctors and other staff. Everybody working here are overwhelmed by the workload,” he bemoaned.
On average, he says, almost 250-300 patients attend at the outpatient unit of the hospital for treatment every day, while 60-70 get admitted. But they are accommodated on the floor due to serious capacity crises.
There are 10 doctors against the positions of 19 in the upazila. And they are engaged in medical works in five sub-health centres of the upazila. Only two doctors are currently providing treatment at the hospital every day. Medical assistants are seen providing treatment on regular basis due to the rush of patients.
Other officials at the hospital said, the hospital launched its Caesarean section barely seven months ago, but its only gynecologist consultant was transferred to Feni General Hospital on June 27, leaving its C-section unit virtually closed.
They said there is no anesthesia specialist in the hospital, and it has two ECG machines with no cardiographer to operate those.
Even though there is an X-ray machine in the hospital, patients cannot avail facility just for lack of a technician.
Now the hospital authorities are worried that the unused medical equipment, worth crores, may become inoperable due to the lack of operators.
“The medical equipment here will soon go out of order as they remain unused for lack of manpower,” said Utpal Das, a health and family planning officer of the upazila complex.
He also said they are under a huge workload as the number of patients has increased due to Covid-19 pandemic and dengue.
Civil Surgeon Dr Rafiq-us-Salehin said: "Not just at Sonagazi Upazila Health Complex, there is a crisis of doctors in all the health complexes of the district."
He said the relevant ministry has been informed about the situation through a letter; they were waiting for a response.