For a woman in her 30s, it was a terrifying experience as she was one of the few people who were tested positive for COVID-19 infection at an early stage in the country in the past month.
She had to undergo a week of anguish and a deteriorating health condition coupled with mismanagement during treatment at a dedicated hospital for COVID-19 patients in the capital.
Some novel virus-infected patients, who recovered over the last few weeks, complained that they had endured improper treatment approaches and poor facilities at the early stage at the dedicated hospitals.
The Dhaka woman developed covid-19 symptoms on the night of March 21 and she was having difficulties breathing and speaking.
On March 24, she was rushed to Kuwait-Bangladesh Friendship Hospital in Uttara, the first dedicated hospital for COVID-19 patients.
‘There was a total chaos in the treatment approach as doctors and nurses were not frequently attending the patients. I felt like an ill-fated creature there. I felt like that it should have been better if I was staying in isolation in my home rather than coming to the hospital,’ the patient told New Age.
She finally recovered and was tested negative for COVID-19 on March 31 and was now placed under home quarantine.
Visits by doctors, nurses or other medical staff members at these wards for service were few. Doctors were visiting patients once or twice a day.
A control room phone number of the hospital was kept in the wards or cabins and patients had to call that number if there were any requirements. It was very difficult for critical patients to call to control room when they were being treated with nebuliser and oxygen, she added.
A COVID-19 infected doctor, who was treated at the hospital, said that mosquito menace had worsened the situation there.
‘COVID-19 patients usually suffer with diarrhea for days. I had the same problem, but toilets at the hospital were very shabby and unhygienic when I was admitted there. I had to make repeated requests to the hospital authorities to clean up the toilet, he said.
Some patients complained that the authorities were not supplying foods to their beds. Instead they had to collect their foods from a specified place.
‘Hospital staff members were leaving daily meals on chairs in each floor and announced that the meal time on the microphone, said an elderly resident of Uttar Tolarbagh neighbourhood in Mirpur of the capital, who recovered and returned home recently.
‘How can a critical patient under oxygen or nebulizer support collect his or her meal?’ he asked.
A nurse of Dhaka Medical College Hospital was infected with the virus and admitted to Ma O Shishu Shashtho Hospital in Mirpur on Sunday. He had to go through facing an ordeal due to a series of mismanagement during treatment from the very beginning.
He told New Age that he needed oxygen support and was left to his own devices on Monday, the day he was taken to the hospital, as there were no doctors or medical staff available to provide the service.
‘I know how to handle the medical equipment that was there and that is why I could do something all by myself. But what would be the fate of an ordinary patient who does not have any idea how to use these equipment,’ he asked.
A video emerged on Facebook on Saturday of a person bursting into tears in the premises of Kurmitla General Hospital and complaining that his mother, a COVID-19 suspected patient from Narayanganj, died at the hospital for not getting proper treatment.
His mother was a diabetic patient, but the hospital could not treat her with insulin, the man complained.
When approached, the hospital director brigadier general Jamil Ahmad told New Age that the woman died from COVID-19 infection. It had nothing to do with insulin and the complaint was baseless.
Chattogam General Hospital has been treating coronavirus-infected patients for the last few days. As off Monday, 25 patients were undergoing treatment there.
The hospital’s head of medicine department Abdur Rob told New Age that they were trying their best to treat patients but they lacked some important medical facilities.
‘Our hospital is yet to have ICUs for COVID-19 patients. We hope to receive 10 ICU facilities in two days. We need portable X-ray machines. Without that, we have to move the patients to other parts of the hospital which poses risk of further spreading. We also need ABG machine to measures the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the patient’s blood,’ the doctor said.-New Age
