Patients in several hospitals in Dhaka and Chattogram and Noakhali have been suffering as many parts of the country experienced a power outage from this afternoon.
The national grid line failure resulted in the power outage in Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet and Cumilla at 2:05pm today (October 4, 2022).
In Chattogram Medical College Hospital, the authorities are running their services on a limited scale. There is a shortage of water supply following the power cut, our staff correspondent reports.
Around 4:30pm, the children's health ward of the hospital found that patients with pneumonia and shortness of breath could not be nebulised. There are hundreds of patients in the ward.
Ward doctor Farhana Noorin told The Daily Star that nebuliser was closed due to lack of electricity. The AC is also not running. The ceiling fans are not all in use either.
Meanwhile in Dhaka, our correspondents talked to authorities of two major hospitals.
At National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR), services at OT, ICU, CCU, and HDU is going on normally due to the generator backup, Prof Abdul Gani Mollah, director of NITOR, said.
The emergency service also remains normal, he said.
But there was no supply of electricity at the hospital wards, he added.
There was no report of any major problem from Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical College University (BSMMU) due to the power cut until the filing of this report at 7:00pm.
At Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) too, emergency services at OT, ICU, CCU and HDU is continuing normally with backup electricity from a generator, said DMCH Assistant Director Ashraful Alam.
There is an arrangement of electricity supply to the wards and other sections in the hospital, he added.
However, he expressed concern if the power outage were to continue for hours.
In Noakhali, nine upazilas of the district are without electricity due to power cut. The medical service at 250-bed Noakhali General Hospital, nine upazila health complexes and more than 100 private hospitals are being disrupted.
Shipon Saha, assistant deputy general manager (AGM) of a private hospital in Noakhali district, told our Noakhali correspondent that the hospital authorities managed to provide light with generators but major operations could not be done due to lack of power supply in the town since this afternoon.
Syed Mohiuddin Abdul Azim, resident medical officer of Noakhali General Hospital, said "as the power supply was cut off for a long time, the patients admitted to the ward have been suffering a lot. Emergency operations have been disrupted due to lack of electricity."
