Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) was established for providing patients with quality treatment alongside physicians’ higher education and research activities. The institution has also won people’s trust in a short period of time. They believe they will receive good treatment going to this hospital.
However, sometimes there is such news about this university in the media that it becomes difficult to keep faith in them. We came to learn from a report published in Prothom Alo on 20 June that half of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at BSMMU is out of order.
There are 101 ICU beds there with 20 of those for newborns and 20 others for children. Of the total ICUs, 42 are out of order. And 20 ICUs have never even been started up. In that sense, 62 ICUs are lying unused. Besides, there are 14 HDU beds in the hospital, four of which cannot be put to use because of the lack of necessary equipment.
How acute the country’s crisis of ICUs actually is, people learnt it the hard way during corona times. There’s no way of denying that the number of ICUs is low in every single hospital, be it public or private.
However, it is in no way acceptable that ICUs will remain out of order or lay idle in the finest autonomous hospitals of the country. Not all the patients require ICUs for their treatment. Only the patients who are in complicated, critical or near-death conditions are provided treatment at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
As an autonomous hospital, the cost of treatment is comparatively lower in the ICUs of BSMMU. Daily charges for normal ICU are Tk 2,100. Another Tk 960 is required for life support equipment and monitors. That means the daily charges do not go overboard than Tk 3,010. And, the daily cost is Tk 1,500 for a newborn.
On the other hand, the daily ICU charge in any medium standard private hospital in Dhaka is Tk 15,000 while, patients have to spend up to Tk 50,000 a day in the prominent hospitals.
The explanation BSMMU pro-vice chancellor (education) professor Md Atiqur Rahman gave to Prothom Alo about the matter of the ICUs remaining out of order is not acceptable.
He said when the new administration took over, a list was drawn up of the unused ICUs and efforts are being made to start those up. Arrangements are being made to train the staff required to bring those back into operation. Also initiative has been taken to release funds for purchase of equipment.
We don’t believe there’s any connection between administrative overturn and the ICUs being started up. It’s a continuous process. Whenever an ICU or any other equipment of the hospital goes out of order they will be reinstalled.
Public health expert Be-nazir Ahmed was right in saying that a culture of humanitarian and advanced services has not been created here yet. If it had more than half of the ICUs at BSMMU wouldn’t have remained out of use for month after month.
In addition to the ICUs being out of order, the hospital also lacks in skilled staff. According to Prothom Alo’s report, the sort of skilled nurses and healthcare professionals that are required for the treatment of ICU patients are not available there.
They are operating with one person performing the duties of two. Sometimes, even that’s not an option. Such condition of the country’s finest autonomous hospital cannot be justified in any possible way.
Hopefully the out-of-order ICUs at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical College will be immediately brought back into operation and required staff will be appointed. If there’s not essential equipment and skilled staff available at the hospital what’s the point of constructing fancy buildings one after another.