The government has taken maximum preparation to continue healthcare in the flood-affected districts of the country’s east, Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md. Sakhawat Hossain has said. He said the leave of health workers in the 11 at-risk districts had been cancelled to ensure they performed their duties at the field level.
He made the remarks at a news conference on healthcare activities in the flood-affected areas, held in the conference room of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at the Secretariat on Monday.
The health minister said adequate medicine, saline, antivenom, doctors and health workers had been kept ready so that no patient anywhere would be deprived of treatment, and that additional medical teams would be sent from the central level if needed.
He said several districts of the Chattogram region had been flooded by several days of heavy rain and hill runoff. Although this had disrupted communications, the economy and healthcare, the government had taken quick steps to deal with the situation. When water entered the ground floor of one hospital, doctors, nurses and health workers had moved medical equipment to safety that very night at some risk, he said, and the leave of health workers in 11 districts had been cancelled to ensure field-level duty.
The minister said 11 districts, including Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban, Rangamati, Khagrachhari, Feni, Noakhali, Lakshmipur, Chandpur, Cumilla and Brahmanbaria, had currently been identified as flood-affected, and special healthcare activities were being run in them. A senior doctor had been assigned to each district to oversee the overall health situation, and the health ministry’s control room was collecting information and coordinating around the clock.
He said the situation was being monitored in constant coordination with district administrations, civil surgeons, hospital authorities and local administrations, and that directives had been given to ensure healthcare for pregnant women, children and people in remote areas in particular.
On snakebite cases, the health minister said a warning had been issued earlier over fears of increased snake activity during the floods, and people had been urged to go to hospital quickly rather than to a traditional healer. On the first night of the flooding, five snakebite patients were admitted to hospital, given antivenom, and all were well, he said.
On this, Health Secretary Md. Kamruzzaman Chowdhury said that, according to the latest information, 95 snakebite patients had received treatment at various hospitals in the flood-affected areas and all were well. He said more than a thousand vials of antivenom were currently in stock, 21,000 vials had been preserved at the district level, and more would be arranged within the next 15 days.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report