Mismanagement, lack of care make patients suffer
Rajibul Islam wants to forget his maiden visit to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. On Thursday, this 19-year-old took his father to the hospital in a serious condition. With them was his worried mother.
Mofizur Rahman, Rajibul’s father and also a police constable, survived a massive stroke just a few months ago. Last Thursday he fell sick again and started to vomit almost ceaselessly. The family had to rush him to a hospital but that was only the trailer of the nightmare ahead. The Daily Star followed Mofizur Rahman since his arrival at the hospital.
As soon as they got to DMCH around 10:45am, the emergency department without any primary screening referred Mofizur to Ward-315, the male medicine ward. Rajibul and his mother had no idea about where the ward was and how to get there with a patient on a stretcher, as moving a patient from place to place in this hospital is surprisingly the sole responsibility of the patient’s family or relatives.
So, with the father continuing to throw up they took an elevator to get to the third floor. When Rajibul stepped out of the lift to see whether he was on the right floor the lift closed and started to go down. The family also had no idea on how a lift works. The boy realised his parents were lost in a maze.
“It is not possible for my mother to even move the stretcher without help.” He panicked and ran for the stairs.
This was their third failed attempt in 20 minutes. They found no hospital staff to direct them to the referred ward through the long corridor jam-packed with patients and their attendants.
“It is ironic that I could not find a doctor in a hospital who could see my father,” said Rajibul.
Rajibul found the male ward at 11:37am after losing some valuable time he could have used on his father’s treatment. By then it was almost 12 hours since his father’s condition started to deteriorate.
The doctors at the male ward asked Rajibul to admit his father immediately for which he had to rush back to the emergency unit reception to perform the admission formalities, which took half-an-hour for the teenager.
On the way to the reception desk, he saw another patient Laily who sustained injuries on the face and head in an accident. Her relatives said doctors did not attend her as they were waiting for police to come and investigate first. Laily came to the hospital a few minutes before Mofizur.
Rajibul then realised that it might take a few more hours before Mofizur would have his treatment started as the patient needed diagnosis first.
It took another half-an-hour for Rajibul to find a stretcher to take his father to the pathological laboratory. Meanwhile, Mofizur’s condition was not getting any better.
Till noon doctors at the emergency unit were not found examining any patients. Usually, two doctors are assigned for the unit where over 600 patients show up every day. Besides, the emergency unit has a mini operation theatre with the capacity of surgery of four people at a time.
“We prefer referring a patient to a relevant ward unless the patient requires immediate surgery. I think this is the most convenient way to handle such big number of patients,” said a duty doctor at the emergency unit, adding, “When you have to attend a patient every two minutes it is not humanly possible to afford the time for complete screening prior to admission.”
The doctor also alleged that some patients pretend to be sicker than they actually are to draw doctors’ attention.
On the other hand, referring patients to different wards without screening proved not that convenient. For instance, patient Jasim Uddin, who needed immediate dialysis, was referred to the male ward instead of the Nephrology department. When The Daily Star found him at DMCH on Thursday, Jasim Uddin looked pale. His panicky and shocked wife was seen shedding tears fearing the worst.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
