People of northern districts like to choose Rangpur Medical College Hospital (RpMCH) as one of the very few places to receive medication. However, medical facilities specially kidney related treatments in RpMCH can barely function due to lack of Kidney Dialysis Machine and the dilapidated condition of the functioning ones.
Though the number of patients with kidney related problems increases constantly whether the condition of the dialysis machines get worse day by day/ Even the water treatment machines in the hospital complex are not working properly. Thus patients in kidney department are facing hassles heavily.
According to the Kidney department, 13 out of 25 kidney dialysis machines have become completely out of order. Conditions of the other twelve are not good as any sort of stress turn them down. For this reason, dialysis receiving patients in the hospital face massive troubles. Both of the water treatment plants of this department are in a dilapidated condition. This department is running with only 25 beds though the pressure of patients is too high.
962 patients in 2020 have taken treatment while they were admitted at the department. 589 of them were dialysis patients. Patients from other wards also took dialysis treatment during this time. RpMCH through the year faces swarms of patients like that.
Shafikul Islam (60) from Dinajpur said that he came to Rangpur from Dinajpur at 8am where his dialysis started after 12.30pm. He has to go through this process two times a week. Due to the insufficient number of dialysis machines, he has to wait for hours every time. Even the standard dialysis time get reduced to 2 hours from 4 hours in general.
“Sometimes I had to go back to Dinajpur without receiving the dialysis,” he added.
Patient Kazi Firoj (31) and Abdul Mannan (49) from Hili Upazila said the doctors were caring and helpful enough but there are few things they could offer due to the lack of equipment.
Hospital officials stated that 130 patients are taking treatment under tk 20,000 package. More than 12 patients from kidney department and 19 to 20 patients from other departments take dialysis treatment daily. These patients have no option but to rely on these dilapidated machines.
Professor Dr. ABM Mobassher Alam from the Kidney Department said, “This department started its function with 15 machines in 2012. Ten additional machines then were added in 2017. 13 of those 25 machines are out of order as of now. The machines that are barely working are not totally reliable as these tend to stop during procedures. As there are no in house technicians in the hospital, repairing takes more than five days and the hassles increase.”
“Most of the machines are not in a condition to be used in medical treatment as the warranty period has been over for a long time. New machines and in house technicians will improve our service,” he added.
