Shaheed Syed Nazrul Islam Medical College Hospital was established in 2011 but was officially inaugurated in March 2020. Patients and relatives have been expressing dissatisfaction with the services here since the inauguration. They alleged that those suffering from severe and complex diseases were discouraged from coming to the hospital. Specialist doctors are not available on time.
Doctors send patients to other institutions without seeing them properly. The outsourcing staff there suggested going to nearby diagnostic centers.
However, the hospital has recently achieved the 10th place among the 25 medical college hospitals of the country based on medical services in spite of various difficulties. It has been found that there are 119 doctor posts in the hospital. On the contrary, 85 people are working. At least 200 doctors are needed in this 500-bed hospital. Besides, there is not enough medical doctors. Besides, the hospital needs at least 450 manpower for outsourcing. But 155 people are working in outsourcing. Most of them do not perform their duties properly because they belong to influential circles. When taking action against them, the hospital authorities succumbed to the pressure of the influential. On the other hand, the hospital has 40 cleaning staff.
This hospital requires at least 100 cleaning staff according to its size. According to sources, in 2022, 2 lakh 65 thousand 206 patients received medical care in the outpatient department of the hospital. In 2023, 3 lakh 23 thousand 18 people received medical care from the outpatient department of the hospital. In 2022, the total number of patients admitted in the internal department was 1 lakh 76 thousand 556.
In 2023, the number of inpatients will increase to 213,645. On the other hand, 7452 major and minor operations were performed in the hospital in 2022. 10150 major and minor operations in 2023.
The amount of drugs and reagents allocated to the hospital is very insufficient compared to the demand. Due to which it is not possible to run even six months according to the needs of the patients, so medicines and reagents are coordinated in advance.
According to the hospital authorities, the fee charged per person for dialysis is Tk 400. Total cost is 1600 rupees. Due to low cost and good quality of service, the number of patients is increasing every day. The hospital can accommodate 27 kidney patients on dialysis two days a week in two sessions. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of kidney patients on the waiting list. At least 50 machines are needed to perform dialysis for hundreds of kidney patients but the hospital has only 6. As a result, kidney patients who came to Shaheed Syed Nazrul Islam Medical College Hospital suffered while undergoing dialysis.
Shafiqul Islam is a resident of Gaital area of the district town. He said, there is a kidney patient in my family. He has to undergo regular dialysis. Due to the lack of dialysis machines in Syed Nazrul Medical, hundreds of family members like me are undergoing dialysis from outside at exorbitant costs.
Civil society representative AM Obaid complained that the belongings of the relatives of most of the patients who went for treatment at Syed Nazrul Islam Medical Center were stolen. Which is a daily occurrence here. Due to which patients as well as doctors and nurses are also suffering from insecurity. He demanded to strengthen the safety system of patients as well as doctors and nurses as soon as possible.
Director of the hospital Helal Uddin said, "We are trying to increase the quality of service with insufficient doctors and outsourcing staff.
Hospital beds need to be increased to cope with the additional patient pressure. It will be possible to provide services to all patients suffering from kidney disease if the necessary number of dialysis machines are provided and logistic support is obtained.
He also said that there is a need to set up a temporary police camp in this hospital for the safety of everyone including doctors and nurses. Besides, illegal structures have been built on both sides of the road in front of the hospital. Complications often occur in bringing and taking urgent and urgent patients. For this, it has become necessary to quickly remove the illegal shops.
