Rajbari Adhunik Sadar Hospital – the only government hospital in the town – is failing to provide proper healthcare services to locals, because of an acute shortage of doctors, nurses, staff, and accommodation facilities.
Currently, there are only ten doctors against 42 posts at the hospital, which provides service to over 1.5m people of the district.
Other key posts, including that of 10 specialist doctors and a medical officer of homeopathy, also remain vacant.
The departments of cardiology, pediatrics, surgery, anesthesia, and medicine also have no senior consultants appointed, while several departments also lack any junior consultant, said an official at the civil surgeon’s office, seeking anonymity.
Hospital sources said the shortage of child specialists and medicine consultants resulted in the death of nine children and five elderly people in the last two months.
The posts of hospital superintendent, nursing supervisor, administrative officer, statistics officer, accountant, storekeeper and 24 other posts also remain vacant at the hospital.
Only four medical assistants are currently providing treatment to outdoor patients, while emergency patients who came to the hospital in the afternoon or at night were often deprived of medical attention, as two emergency medical posts are also vacant.
During a visit to the hospital on September 25, this correspondent found a huge number of patients lying on the floor of different wards and corridors.
A patient from the sadar upazila’s Felur Dokan area said medical representatives often visited doctors during their duty hours. He claimed that he could not meet a doctor for consultation despite waiting for four hours.
Sakhina, a resident of sadar upazila who brought her children to see a pediatrician, said the post of child specialist had been lying vacant for two years. Her children also had to leave without any treatment.
Four-month old Arifa, who was suffering from severe pneumonia, had to be referred to the Faridpur General Hospital, as there was no pediatrician at the hospital.
Shyamoli, 65, and Feroza, 55, patients from Pabna’s Sujanagar upazila with severe respiratory problem and lower abdominal pain respectively, claimed they were not getting proper treatment at the hospital because of the non-availability of doctors.
A medical assistant, seeking anonymity, said each assistant was serving 150 to 180 outdoor patients daily.
Sources said, 180 to 200 patients stay at different wards every day, although there were only 80 beds available.
The hospital has only one x-ray machine and a single operation theater, while the anesthesia machine is not used because of the doctor shortage.
Hospital sources said the operation theater had not been utilized properly for the past three years because of the shortage of senior surgery and anesthesia doctors.
Any patient who came to the hospital seeking surgery, were referred to different clinics and the Faridpur sadar hospital by attending doctors.
Residential Medical Officer Abdul Hannan said the hospital could not be run properly as most doctor posts were vacant.
Rajbari district Civil Surgeon Dr Nurul Amin said several letters have been sent to authorities concerned seeking more doctors for the vacant posts, but to no effect. The district currently has 45 doctors while 126 posts are vacant, he said.
