Dengue Outbreak: Shishu Hospital having to turn away patients

Three-year-old Omar Faruk was having seizures when his father Enamul Haque brought him to Bangladesh Shishu Hospital around 2:30pm yesterday.

But after one and a half hours, the authorities told the desperate father to immediately take the baby somewhere else because there was no room at the hospital.

"I don't know what I will do now," Enamul told The Daily Star on the hospital premises.

The hospital has been overwhelmed for days by the influx of severely ill children with dengue, and doctors have been forced to turn away patients who require immediate attention.

Another father named Salauddin arrived at the facility in the afternoon with his 11-year-old Nusrat Jahan, who had problems in her urinary tract.

After he was turned away by the hospital staff, Salauddin, a garment factory worker from Tongi, said he was also turned away from Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital and the National Institute of Kidney Diseases and Urology earlier in the day.

Salauddin added that he could not afford to take his daughter to any private hospital.

Different other hospitals in the capital have been at capacity due to the deluge of dengue patients for weeks.

A paediatrician at the Shishu hospital said, "We are handling too many dengue patients. We have over 100 dengue patients now, and this leaves less room for other patients."

The doctor added that over 20 patients were turned away in just eight hours yesterday.

A government employee, requesting anonymity, said five days ago, he failed to get his seriously ill son admitted to the Shishu Hospital.

Shishu Hospital Director Prof Mohammad Jahangir Alam says there are 681 beds at the hospital. "We are trying our best to accommodate the patients."

Jahangir acknowledged that in some cases the health care workers were failing to accommodate all  patients due to the limited number of beds.

The health directorate yesterday reported that at least 10 dengue patients had died and 1,757 new cases were recorded.

The death toll from the disease this year reached 293 and cases 61,473, said the directorate in a statement.

HM Nazmul Ahsan, associate professor at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital, said, "The wards dedicated for dengue patients are full. Most of the beds in general wards are also occupied by people suffering from dengue.

"We are giving treatment only to patients who are in a critical state or at serious risk."