Patients suffer due to shortage of doctors, nurses during Eid holidays
It was around 11:00am on Eid-day.
Mohammad Saiful Islam was frantically looking for a doctor at the child medicine ward of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) as the time for medication of his two-year-old son had been over some two hours back.
The anti-poison injection for Sohag, who took rat poison mistakenly, was supposed to be administered by a doctor.
But the shortage of doctors at the hospital was so acute on the Eid day that no doctor could administer the medication on Sohag on time -- by 9:00am.
“I was looking for the doctor desperately,” said Sohag's father Saiful at the ward-208 of DMCH where his son was undergoing treatment.
Failing to find any doctor, he requested the on-duty nurse to give his son the injection. The nurse initially refused, saying it was a delicate medication and she could not do it.
“As it was nearly two hours later than the scheduled time, I took the risk and gave him the injection,” said the nurse at the ward.
The doctor arrived at the ward minutes after 11:00am. When asked, he told The Daily Star that there were only two doctors available for three child medicine wards on the Eid-day.
Such shortage of doctors was causing serious problems in handling a huge number of patients, he added.
The nurse, who gave Sohag the injection, said, "Normally seven to eight doctors are on duty in a ward. But only two are now here during the morning shift at the wards 7, 8 and 10."
It is really difficult for the on-duty doctors to handle such a large number of patients due to the shortage of doctors and nurses during the Eid vacation, she said.
Not only DMCH, almost all of the capital's hospitals were facing the same situation.
These correspondents also visited the National Institute of Traumatology, Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation (NITOR) and Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital (SSMCH).
They found that patients were waiting in long lines, even in emergency cases. The on-duty doctors were struggling to handle the patients. Some of them had to work double shifts.
The doctors and nurses at the hospitals also said almost all of those on duty during the Eid vacation were non-Muslims.
“The doctors did not allow patients to be admitted during the Eid unless it was an emergency or a very serious case,” said a nurse at the DMCH.
Subrata Kumar Roy, assistant professor at DMCH, said usually 30 to 40 doctors remain present at some particular wards, but during the Eid, only three doctors had to bear the workload.
On the other hand, over 2,150 nurses work on normal days, but during the Eid vacation only around 420 nurses were on duty at the DMCH.
Subrata said most of the patients coming to the hospital during the holidays were emergency patients that required emergency care. This caused immense pressure on the handful of doctors on duty, he added.
According to hospital officials around 15 to 20 percent of the total number of doctors and nurses were present in the hospitals during the Eid vacation, while the pressure of patients increased by around 10 percent in the emergency departments.
NITOR
Ria Moni, a nine-year-old girl who suffered knife injuries on Tuesday, had to wait for around 16 hours for an operation due to a shortage of doctors at the operation theatre, and a scarcity of blood.
“My daughter was operated around 2:00am yesterday though she sustained injuries in her leg on Tuesday morning,” said her father Kamal Hossain, a rickshaw-van puller, who rushed to the hospital with his injured daughter around 2:00pm on Tuesday.
The Uttara resident said he also faced difficulties finding a bag of “O” negative blood for his daughter. “After searching for long, finally I was able to buy a bag of blood at Tk 5,000 at a blood bank in Mohakhali.”
“It usually costs around Tk 2,000,” alleged Kamal.
Officials at the Institute of Traumatology, Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation (NITOR) said compared to previous Eid holidays, they saw more patients this time around.
The doctors at the hospital had to face huge challenges while providing services to the patients as less than 20 percent of the total doctors of the hospital were present during the holidays.
There are 320 nurses at the hospital, of which 51 (non-Muslims) were present during the Eid vacation, said the hospital sources.
“Around 150 patients with serious injuries came to the emergency department of the hospital for treatment everyday during the three days of the Eid holidays. Normally, the number remains around 130-140,” said a hospital official.
“During the vacation, the doctors were serving patients for around 12 hours per day instead of an eight-hour shift,” said a source at the emergency department.
Blood bank technologist Bidhan Chandra Ghosh said he had to be on duty for 16 hours on Tuesday due to a shortage of manpower.
SSMCH
Three-month pregnant Umme Jahan started bleeding the day before Eid.
Worried, her husband Aminur Rahman Russel took her to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital (SSMCH) from Mirpur.
The doctors said that she should undergo an ultrasonogram.
The couple were scared. They feared if proper and timely treatment cannot be ensured something bad might happen.
Unfortunately, the department of radiology, where the test is usually done, was closed that day. A frantic Aminur ran outside in search of a CNG-run auto-rickshaw to get the test done at another hospital.
But it was difficult to move quickly as his wife was weak due to the bleeding.
After nearly a two-hour hassle, they had the test done at a private hospital. “If the department at SSMCH was open such harassment could have been avoided,” said Aminur standing beside the postnatal ward at the SSMCH. He said the condition of his wife was stable now.
Due to the Eid festival, most of the doctors and staff members at the hospital were on vacation.
There were 10 wards at the hospital. After visiting different wards it was found that two or three nurses were working at the wards.
While talking to one of the nurses at Ward-1, she said during regular days, at least six nurses stay on duty on three shifts.
The radiology department was found closed in the afternoons and evenings during the Eid vacation. It was supposed to remain open for 24 hours.
Dr Roni Roy, emergency medical officer at SSMCH, said there were shortage of nurses and intern doctors at the emergency department. “However, we tried to mange the situation as best as we could.”
Contacted, Dr Ehteshamul Huq Choudhury, additional director general of the Directorate General of Health Services, said they were aware of such shortage of doctors and nurses at the hospitals during the Eid holidays.
“In developed countries there are pools of doctors and nurses who work on holidays, but there is no such mechanism in Bangladesh,” he said.
“We are thinking of a mechanism to address such crisis,” Dr Ehteshamul told The Daily Star.
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