Children living in Barisal region are being denied the proper healthcare services, with only 55 health officials appointed for treating almost 4.3 million children living in 41 upazilas under the six districts of Barisal division.
Fifty of these doctors – most of whom are non-pediatrician interns – work at Barisal’s Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital (SBMCH), while other hospitals and health complexes in the region have only five pediatricians working as junior consultants.
Local health sector sources said Barisal division has 4,299,622 children of up to 15 years of age.
With the exception of the SBMCH, only 18 out of 41 upazila health complexes and district headquarter-level general hospitals had the sanctioned posts of junior consultants for the treatment of children, although 13 of those facilities had their posts vacant. The rest of the medical facilities had no post for pediatricians at all.
The 100-bed Pirojpur and Barguna Sadar General Hospitals also did not have any separate post for pediatric doctors, Divisional Health Director Dr Shamsul Haque admitted.
He said local medical facilities with over 50-plus bed capacity had separate posts for pediatricians, but only five of such 18 hospitals currently had doctors for children.
Vacancies in pediatrician posts included four out of sanctioned five posts in Bhola, one out of two posts in Pirojpur, all three posts in Barguna, two out of three posts in Patuakhali, one out of two posts in Jhalakathi, and two out of three posts in Barisal.
The 500-bed SBMCH reportedly has three children’s wards with 114-beds, with around 50 doctors including non-pediatrician interns serving children at the indoor and the outdoor wards of the hospital.
Dr MR Talukdar Mujib, head of pediatrics department at the SBMCH, said the lack of pediatricians on the grassroots-level forced the hospital to treat a large number of patients with only limited beds, manpower, equipment and infrastructure.
The SBMCH had 64 beds for children and 50 more beds for neonatal babies in three wards, he added.
Dr Syed Zahid Hossain, a former principal of the SBMC and a former head of the SBMCH pediatric department, said children mostly suffered from diseases like acute respiratory infection, pneumonia, diarrhea, anemia, hemophilia, leukemia, tetanus, measles, congenital heart disease, spinal bifida, thalasemia and diabetes insipidus.
Most of these diseases could be prevented and treated at grassroots-level hospitals and health complexes if pediatricians were appointed and other infrastructural supports provided, Dr Zahid said.
Anwar Zahid, a local health rights activist, stressed on creating new posts and filling the vacant posts of pediatricians in the grassroots-level medical facilities, as well as ensuring sufficient logistic and infrastructural supports at the hospitals to create a healthy future generation.