The ongoing nationwide blockade has been causing immense sufferings to the patients. The transport disruptions are causing extra sufferings to thousands of patients needing treatment in hospitals. Besides the opposition, the patients and their relatives also blamed the election commission and the government for taking no initiative for an inclusive election that could end the blockade.
Patient admissions into the city hospitals dropped sharply.
Serious patients referred from the outlying districts found it almost impossible to reach Dhaka due to the 72-hour nation wide blockade.
The patients in outlying areas needing hospitalization in the capital found it difficult to get transports and many of them had to pay huge sums on ambulance hiring, said relatives.
Hospital officials in the city said the rush of patients dropped drastically in last three days.
And many patients, admitted earlier, were unable to leave, they said.
The officials said only the patients living in the city could manage to reach the hospitals but not without difficulties.
From the outlying areas, they said, only emergency patients came to the hospitals facing many hassles.
Aminul Islam, 51, took admission at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital with head injury.
He came all the way from Bakshiganj in Sherpur, said his son Abdus Sattar.
‘On Saturday, we had taken him to Mymensing Medical College Hospital, but MMCH referred him to DMCH,’ Sattar said.
‘Hiring an ambulance cost us Tk 6,500,’ he said.
‘He was unconscious, when we brought our father to Dhaka braving the risk of arson attacks,’ he said.
He is still unconscious, he said.
On Monday, DMCH treated 380 patients at the emergency department, 91 general patients and admitted 37 police case patients until 4 PM, said officials.
The records show that on Sunday DMCH admitted only 244 patients, compared to between 300 and 350 in normal times, they said.
Amanat Hasan Shohel, emergency medical officer at DMCH said the rush of patients was much less since the blockade began.
‘Usually, each evening the rush of patients from the outlying areas increases as they have to travel a long distance starting in the morning,’ he said.
In the last three days, he said, the picture was different as only the patients living in the city could come.
Moyna, daughter of a patient, who had taken admission in the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, said the doctors wanted to release her mother on Saturday.
She said they requested the doctors to release her mother after the blockade was over as they have to return to Barisal.
Kholil, son of an admitted patient in the t NICVD emergency, said they had come form Shariatpur in an ambulance by paying Tk 7,000.
NICVD officials said they provided treatment to only 193 patients at the out patient department down from the usual 550.
‘Many routine patients came from the outlying areas before the blockade,’ said OPD staff Mohammad Khalil.
Now, most of the patients are from the city, they said.
On Monday, they said only 26 patients took admission until 12.45PM.
The picture in Dhaka Shishu Hospital was no different.
Officials said more than 30 per cent of 560 seats in DSH were vacant.
On Monday, they said, only 274 patients came to the DSH OPD until 12.30 PM, compared to the usual 1,000.
-With New Age input
