Mugda lacks facilities for the elderly

Along with her son Rezaur Rahman and his wife Farhana Hossain, 84-year-old Rizia Khatun, an osteoporosis patient, went to the capital's Mugda Medical College Hospital to take the Covid-19 vaccine yesterday.

Reaching there around 10:00am, from their home in Narinda, they did not find any attendant or wheelchair on their way to their destination -- the second floor of the hospital. They also could not find any elevator.

Holding hands of her son and daughter-in-law, Rizia then had to take the trouble of climbing the stairs to make it to the vaccination booth.

Many other elderly people, who went to the hospital for the shots, suffered the same way. Talking to The Daily Star, they complained of mismanagement at the public hospital's inoculation management.

Abul Hossain, 73, and his wife Monowara Begum, 65, are among them. "We came here around 10:00am. We had to wait for three hours to take the shot," said Abdul, who lives in Gopibagh area.

The vaccination is supposed to start at 8:00am and end at 4:00pm every day. But at the hospital at Mugda, the first shot was administered around 10:00am yesterday, officials said.

A total of 500 people were scheduled to be given the dose. Of them, 354 were vaccinated yesterday. On the first day of the mass inoculation against the Covid-19, on Sunday,  314 of 500 registered people were given the shots at the hospital, said officials.

Muhtasim Belal, who came along with father Nurul Haque Patowary, 93, and mother Rokeya Begum, 75, said they too did not find any hospital attendant after arriving there.

"I asked the receptionists where the vaccination booths were and he told me that they were on the second floor. It would have been better if the vaccination centre had been situated on the ground floor since the vaccine recipients include many elderly people like my parents," Belal told this newspaper at the hospital.

They also should have arranged wheelchairs, he added.

Many others said there were no printers at the vaccination booths, so they had to go outside to take a printout of the registration form's copy.

Asked, the deputy director of the hospital Md Nurul Islam said they pasted written instructions on the ground floor's wall.

Asked about the lifts, Asim Kumar Nath, director of the hospital, said two of the four elevators there were out of order. Of the two, one was dedicated to the doctors.

"We are repairing the lifts. Wheelchairs have been provided for the elderly," he said.

In Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and Shuhrawardy Medical College Hospital, elderly people, on the contrary, expressed satisfaction at their services yesterday.

Retired engineer Sayed Hossain and his wife went to the BSMMU vaccination centre and took the jabs around half an hour before the schedule.

"We're happy with the services. We are now going back home," Sayed told this newspaper sitting on a wheelchair, before boarding an ambulance.

For businessman Hazi Tofazzol Hossain, 68, who came from Sankar area of Dhanmondi, taking the vaccine was his responsibility, he said.

"Many people don't want to get vaccinated. For me, it was an urgent issue. I am feeling well after taking the shot," he said, as he was waiting at the post-vaccination observation room at Shuhrawardy Medical College Hospital.

Urging people to take the vaccine, he said, "We should not believe any rumours. If the vaccine was not good, hundreds of thousands of people would not take this worldwide."

At the same centre at the hospital, Ahsan Habib, a young banker from Keraniganj's Kalatia, took the jab yesterday.

"All of my colleagues have also registered for the vaccination. We all are taking the vaccine willingly to stay safe from Covid-19," Habib told The Daily Star.

Martha Mondal, a nurse who was injecting the vaccine at the centre, said people were taking the vaccine eagerly. "The presence of the vaccine recipients is good. None of them showed any symptoms during the last two days of vaccination," she said.