Dengue Cases: Pathology labs swamped

Mahmuda Akter stood in line with her sick one-year-old in her arms for a dengue test at the capital's Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital around 10:00am yesterday.

However, she had to wait three more hours just to submit her child's blood sample.

"I was at least able to submit the sample. Many people who brought their babies had to leave without submitting [blood samples]," Mahmuda told The Daily Star on her way back from the dengue sample collection booth around 2:00pm.

She said she was sent to a room on the third floor thrice before they could find someone competent enough to collect the blood from the child.

"The process was quite frustrating. It's unfortunate that no special arrangements were made for babies in the face of such a huge rush of patients."

On the other hand, hospital authorities said they have been struggling to cope with the overwhelming rush for tests, which has been going on for the past month as dengue cases have been on the rise almost every day.

In Bangladesh, the number of dengue cases usually starts rising in June and reaches its peak in November. However, the cases began rising in May this year.

Since January, 30,685 patients have been hospitalised with dengue, including 2,242 yesterday.

Of them, 167 have died, including 11 yesterday, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

As the number of cases has continued shooting up, the DGHS has cut the fees for dengue tests to Tk 50 from Tk 100 at all the public hospitals.

Speaking to The Daily Star, Zahangir Alam, senior medical technologist and pathology unit in-charge at SSMCH, said, "The number of patients coming for tests has increased three to four folds. Consequently, we've been grappling with the overwhelming rush due to an inadequate number of medical technologists.

"Collecting blood samples of babies is a delicate task. We have only one technologist to perform this. As he remains engaged in other tasks every day, there is a delay."

He further said they usually receive some 400-500 blood samples daily for different tests. But the number has now increased to 1,400-1,500 -- mostly for dengue.

To handle the samples, only five permanent and four outsources medical technologists work the day shifts there. For the afternoons and nights, only one technologist is assigned to each shift.

The pathology department at Mugda Medical College Hospital has also been struggling with the rising number of samples for dengue tests.

Imran Hossain, in charge of the hospital's pathology lab, told The Daily Star, "It's a tough situation for us. We have only 16 medical technologists to deal with around 1,100 samples daily."

Dr Khalilur Rahman, director of Suhrawardy hospital, said, "Our pathology unit can handle 600-800 samples daily. But there's no option to delay dengue and emergency tests. So, we have instructed to keep the patients coming for other routine tests waiting.

"We have a shortage [of manpower] and have informed the health directorate about it."

While the numbers of dengue cases and deaths continue to rise, Health Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday said the number of patients in Dhaka has remained static but has been increasing outside the capital.

Though the situation is worsening, it doesn't warrant declaring a health emergency, he said during a visit to Mugda hospital yesterday.