Experts reject DGHS’s decision to bar sending patients to Dhaka Dengue claims more 7 lives, 3027 hospitalised

Reza Mahmud :
Dengue patients suffer severely to get adequate medical treatment from local hospitals like government upazila health complexes and district health facilities due to shortages of medical equipment and necessary doctors, sources said.

Public health experts also said that the upazila and district level government hospitals have not enough resources like physicians, assistants and logistics to give adequate medical treatment to the patients affected with the vector borne disease.

They expressed anxiety over the instructions of the Directorate General of the Health Services (DGHS) to the physicians not to send dengue patients to Dhaka’s hospitals.

When contacted, Professor Dr. Be-Nazir Ahmed, former Director of Disease Control at Directorate General of Health Services told The New Nation on Tuesday, “The Upazila and district level government hospitals have no sufficient medical equipment and specialists doctors to give necessary medical treatment to serious dengue patients.”

“Those hospitals have no ICU beds yet. The upazila hospitals have no sufficient doctors also. District hospitals have only one specialist doctor but have no assistant. In this situation, which decisions to take the physicians when number of serious dengue patients come those
health facilities? They must get no options without refereeing those to big cities like Dhaka,” Professor Be-Nazir said.

“As such, when the DGHS asked those doctors not to send dengue patients to Dhaka might not be followed as it will be necessary to refer such patients to the capital as the doctors might not let those patients to die without giving treatment,” the expert said.

When contacted, Professor Dr. M. Muzaherul Huq, former Advisor of the World Health Organisation (WHO), told The New Nation on Tuesday, “The patients come to Dhaka only when they fail to get sufficient medical treatment from the upazila or district hospitals.”
He said it is up to the patients from where they would receive treatment to get recovery.

The experts said there is no bar in law in getting medical treatment from any stipulated city.

Getting treatment from Dhaka’s hospitals are not easy in terms of costing and other factors.

The patients come there only when failed to get sufficient medical treatment in their own places, the experts said.

The DGHS instructed all health officials across the country not to send any dengue patients to Dhaka’s hospitals from outside the capital.

The instruction was given at an online meeting on Sunday with all civil surgeons, upazila health and family welfare officers and other health officials working in different parts of the country.

Meanwhile, the country recorded seven more deaths from dengue in 24 hours till Tuesday morning, raising the fatalities from the vector-borne disease to 846 this year, Directorate General of the Health Services (DGHS) said.

The press release of the DGHS said, 3,027 more patients were hospitalised with the viral fever during the period.

Among the new patients, 849 were admitted to hospitals in Dhaka and the rest outside the capital–indicating a worsening situation across the country, DGHS said.

As per the data, a total of 10,102 dengue patients, including 3,814 in the capital, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country.
So far, the DGHS has recorded 173,795 dengue cases and 162,447 recoveries this year.

In the first two weeks of September, the Aedes mosquito-borne Dengue has claimed the lives of 174 people across the country. 33,336 cases were reported during the same period.