Sorry state of public hospitals

Healthcare stunted

According to a report in this daily published yesterday, patients have to receive treatment in an unhygienic environment at the Narayanganj 300-bed Hospital, the largest public hospital in the district. Beds in the hospital are in a horrible state, infested with bed bugs and cockroaches with soiled bedsheets. Moreover, many of the beds are strutted up with the help of bricks. And although there should be 300 beds in the hospital, currently only 271 beds exist.

The report is fairly representative of the general condition of many public hospitals across the country. Anyone who has ever visited a public hospital in the country might have seen and experienced the same problems. We wonder why the conditions of our healthcare facilities are so deplorable when a big portion of our health budget is allocated for infrastructure development and purchase of modern equipment. And while lack of cleanliness and absence of proper beds are problems that could be easily solved by the authorities, who will solve other major problems, such as, nonattendance of doctors and lack of diagnostic facilities that most of the public hospitals in the country are facing?

We urge the Narayanganj hospital authorities to ensure a clean environment for the patients and replace the existing broken beds immediately. According to a hospital official, the government has decided to upgrade this hospital to a medical college hospital soon. We think, before planning big, it should solve the existing problems of the hospital. There should be a monitoring mechanism in place to oversee that our public hospitals are run efficiently without which quality treatment to the people, who have no other alternative but to seek treatment in these facilities, can't be provided.

• Courtesy: The Daily Star /Editorial /June 27, 2018