Despite nearly two months passing, dedicated hospitals for treating COVID-19 patients in Dhaka are still not complete. The hospitals which were enlisted cannot diagnose COVID-19 due to acute shortage of physicians, nurses, staff and equipment.
Nine out of the 10 government COVID-19 hospitals are operating below capacity and the remaining one is yet to take in a single patient. This is indeed a cause of concern when the number of cases in the country is increasing at an alarming rate each day.
According to the World Health Organisation, 20 per cent of the coronavirus infected people might need hospitalisation. If the current rate of infection keeps up, soon the country will run out of hospital beds for those who turn critical due to coronavirus.
The government should now put due pressure on
the enlisted hospitals to pick up the pace to prepare
for coronavirus patients in the coming days.
Many patients suffering from coronavirus have said that they did not receive proper treatment at the designated hospitals. Due to shortage of doctors and other healthcare professionals, many patients are not receiving treatment.
Moreover, due to the lack of adequate manpower at IEDCR, results of samples tested cannot be provided by the state-owned agencies as per the schedule. As a result, many people are not being able to access their test results on time. This will only lead to the coronavirus suspected patients to infect more people.
In order to deal with the crisis, DGHS has plans to expand its testing facilities further and IEDCR is in the process of manpower recruitment. A total of 2,000 doctors are also being recruited and given postings to tackle the coronavirus situation, as per government directives.
The government should now put due pressure on the enlisted hospitals to pick up the pace to prepare for coronavirus patients in the coming days. Currently, Bangladesh has around 17,000 cases and the numbers are going up rapidly. Therefore, we must be ready to deal with a greater number of patients requiring intensive care and treatment in the near future.
