Patients are still being refused treatment and compelled to move from one hospital to another causing huge suffering as doctors are reluctant to attend them.
In a latest incident, a chemical businessman of Old Dhaka Sirajul Islam died on early Sunday at Dhaka Medical College Hospital after he was refused treatment at Sir Salimullah Medical College & Mitford Hospital, New Dhaka Modern Clinic.
Sirajul’s daughter Saidia Islam told New Age that her father had tested for Covid-19 at Dhaka Mohanagar General Hospital, but they were yet to receive the result.
Her father met with breathing difficulties since Saturday evening and then was rushed to Mitford Hospital and New Dhaka Modern Clinic, both refused to treat without the Covid-19 test result.
DMCH Covid-19 unit doctors also did not treat him properly, which finally led to his death, alleged Sadia.
On Saturday, Gautam Aich Sarker, additional secretary to the food ministry, died at Kurmitola General Hospital after several hospitals refused to admit him suspecting he was a Covid-19 patient though he needed emergency ICU support.
The government officer’s daughter Sushmita Aich said that her father was taking dialysis from Labaid hospital. Goutam’s condition deteriorated on Thursday during dialysis at the hospital.
The Labaid authorities could not provide him with ICU support and then he was taken to United Hospital, but it also denied him treatment on suspicion of coronavirus infection.
The family then took him to Universal Medical College Hospital and Square Hospital but was still denied treatment since at both hospitals authorities asked for medical certificate to show that the patient did not have Covid-19.
They told Sushmita to get him tested for coronavirus first or the intensive care facility could not be made available.
The government official then died at Kurmitola Hospital on Saturday and was buried at Sarupkathi upazila of Pirojpur, food ministry secretary Nazmanara Khanum said.
The authorities are repeatedly issuing warning to hospital authorities against declining patients and instructing for isolation centres at every hospital, still the situation remained unchanged.
Patients are complaining that different hospitals were asking for ‘No COVID-19’ certificate before admission.
Health minister Zahid Maleque earlier told the media that such refusal were disappointing and they had been noticing a rise in such incidents and promised measures against such apathy, but the situation has not improved.
Earlier on Tuesday, a kidney patient, Rebeca Sultana, had to go from one hospital to another as all the hospitals asked for ‘No COVID-19’ certificate from the family and refused to treat her, despite the family’s plea that she was not coronavirus positive.
Relatives of another patient said that Square and Labaid hospitals refused treatment to a patient who suffered a stroke on the ground that Covid-19 test would have to be done first.
The family then carried the patient to Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s dedicated Covid-19 unit, but the 60-year-old person died at the hospital before any tests could be run.
A woman went to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital with complicacies related to pregnancy, but doctors there asked her to get done Covid-19 test at first.
‘I had no other problems and symptoms, but doctors are still not agreeing to treat me. They were asking me to go to Dhaka Medical College Hospital,’ she told reporters.
Some patients and their relatives complained that there were not many available centres for Covid-19 tests and the hospitals also took few days to provide results.
Amid this situation, it would be difficult to have Covid-19 tests done immediately, patients said.
The health ministry on late March issued a warning that no government or private hospital could refuse treatment to any patient from now on.
Health minister Zahid Maleque then said that the government would take stern actions, including cancelling licences if private hospitals and clinics denied treatment to patients who even displayed Covid-19 symptoms.
Despites such instructions, prominent private hospitals were still declining to treat patients on a regular basis.
There have been a number of allegations against Labaid Hospital of refusing patients.
The hospital’s public relation officer Chowdhurt Meher-e-Khudam, however, denied the allegations saying that they were accepting all kinds of patients, except Covid-19 patients as per the government instruction.
He said that Gautam Aich was their regular patient and had high fever, which is a symptom of the novel coronavirus infection. So they requested the family to take the patient to a dedicated Covid-19 hospital.
ABM Abdullah, former dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, said that everyone is not Covid-19 suspect. There are so many patients of kidney and heart diseases and strokes in need of treatment.
‘The doctors must not refuse them immediately. At least they can talk to the patients and take primary ideas about the diseases,’ he said.
