The manpower crisis has intensified at the Corona Dedicated Hospital in Satkhira due to the increase in corona identification rate recently.
Medical crisis has arisen due to overcrowding of patients. Although the patient pressure can be managed with limited manpower, if the manpower is not increased in the near future, the medical system will face a big disaster.
On Thursday, samples from 211 people were tested and 111 corona positives were identified. The detection rate is 52.60 percent. The day before, 48 people tested positive for corona out of 95 tested ones. The infection rate was 50.53 percent that day.
So far 2,256 people have been infected with corona infection in the district. The hospital authorities are struggling to cope with the pressure of the corona patients. There has even been a crisis of doctors, nurses and beds. Many are taking treatment at home without getting a chance to be admitted at the hospital.
According to sources, in the last 24 hours, two people have died of corona in the corona wards of Satkhira Medical College Hospital and Satkhira Sadar Hospital while, 6 others died with symptoms of corona infection.
Till June 11, a total of 549 corona positive patients were being treated in government and private hospitals of the district including Satkhira Medical College Hospital and Satkhira Sadar Hospital. So far, 51 people have died of Corona in the district and 239 have died in the Corona ward while undergoing treatment.
Some people in charge of health services in the district, who did not want to be named, said there was a shortage of doctors, nurses and staff in the hospitals. Many nurses are giving services to the patients being corona infected themselves. They need home quarantine but if they are given leave, the hospital will not be able to run.
Many times these corona infected nurses themselves are spreading the virus. Many more people are being infected by them. After working in the corona unit for two days, a nurse is transferred to another unit and because of that healthy people are getting infected with corona virus from the nurse, they added.
They also said that many doctors are seeing patients in their chambers and sending them to the medical hospital, putting the nurses here in danger. Many of the medicals are in temporary employment. Some again work through contract recruitment. But they do not get salary allowance properly so, they don't come to the office properly. The service is being disrupted due to them. Many doctors are practicing privately in the medical college hospital under the name of class. Some doctors are giving treatment through mobile with internship doctors, they further added.
Arpana Rani Pal, Nursing Supervisor of Satkhira Medical said, “The number of corona is increasing in the district but, we are struggling to provide services with a limited number of manpower. There are 18 medical units in operation. We can't keep our staffs in quarantine even after serving the corona infected patient. Still we are working. Although there should be 165 nurses in the hospital, currently there are 150 nurses working. Of them, 95 people are on duty while others are in quarantine or sick and receiving treatment. Still in this situation, we are trying our best to provide the best service”.
Dr. Kudrat-e-Khuda, Caretaker of Satkhira Medical College Hospital, said the manpower crisis has intensified due to the increase in corona detection rate. There are 58 posts for doctors, there are only 31 working and 27 posts are vacant. After doing duty for 14 days, a nurse has to be kept in quarantine for another 14 days. Therefore, 36 people are off duty all the time. 7/8 people have been hospitalized due to illness while 10 others are on maternity leave.
There are more patients admitted than the capacity of 120 beds. Doctors and nurses are struggling to provide medical care to those admitted patients due to the crisis. To cope with the way Corona is growing in Satkhira, it is necessary to increase the number of beds as well as doctors and nurses. Despite writing to the Department of Health again and again to increase the manpower for this no solution was received.
Satkhira Civil Surgeon Dr Hussein Shafayat said, “We had a manpower crisis from the beginning. The crisis has become more pronounced as the number of corona patients has increased. I have continued to try to handle it this way. We have even increased the number of corona beds in Sadar Hospital from 10 to 40 beds. In addition, 5 beds have been provided in each upazila health complex for the treatment of corona patients”.
He further said that he has repeatedly sent letters to the health department asking for the appointment of more doctors but, did not get any good answer. But now we need more support staff than doctors.
He again said, “There is no place for admission of new patients in the Medical Hospital. Now patients are being referred from Medical to Sadar. I will declare Sadar Hospital as Corona dedicated hospital next week”. He sought immediate intervention of senior officials of the concerned department to resolve the manpower crisis to provide proper services to corona patients in the district.