Long waits with the dead
Grieving relatives waited for hours to leave the hospital with their dead. Families ran helplessly along floors and verandas. Many tried hard and failed to hire an ambulance, and in the end set off home with the bodies in pickups, vans, rickshaws or CNG-run auto-rickshaws. Moving seriously ill patients to other hospitals was also a struggle. That was the human crisis across Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Tuesday during a day-long strike by private ambulance owners demanding parking.
From morning until 8pm, patients and their relatives were seen at their wits’ end for lack of transport. Some waited four or five hours, others seven or eight, without finding an ambulance, so they left for their destinations with patients and bodies in other vehicles.
Although ambulances stood at the emergency department gate, the college gate, the new building and nearby from the morning, many drivers did not carry patients. Ambulances belonging to the owners’ association, which was on strike all day, and ambulances coming from elsewhere could not enter the hospital. Government ambulances were also rarely seen carrying patients. Patients from outside Dhaka and bereaved families suffered most. Relatives of seriously ill patients spent the day worrying because they could not get them to other hospitals in time.
Md Shaheen of Narayanganj had admitted his 70-year-old grandmother, Halima Begum, to the medicine department in the hospital’s new building on Monday. She died at about 3:30pm on Tuesday. Shaheen looked for an ambulance to take her body to Mawa but found none after waiting more than three hours.
Shaheen said he never thought he would face such trouble at a government hospital. For more than three hours after his grandmother died he could not find an ambulance, and he saw no government ambulance either. In the end, at about 7pm, he hired a pickup van at the Chankharpul intersection and left for Mawa with her body.
Mohammad Monir Hossain of Jatrabari faced the same situation. His elder nephew, Md Rasel, 22, became seriously ill and was brought from Mugda Medical College Hospital to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Rasel died at about 5pm on Tuesday while being treated in the medicine department of the new building. Monir Hossain then looked for an ambulance to take the body but could not find one despite trying hard.
“Grieving for a relative, we had to sit there helpless because we could not get a vehicle to take the body,” Monir Hossain said angrily. “I never imagined we would face this at such a big government hospital.”
Abdul Ahad came to the hospital from Khulna with his seriously injured mother-in-law, who was later referred to the kidney hospital. From midday he could not find an ambulance to take her there. These three were not alone: many other patients and relatives were seen waiting for ambulances on the hospital grounds.
Strike over a parking dispute
Md Shahadat Hossain, general secretary of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital private ambulance owners’ association, told Jugantor on Tuesday evening: “After the hospital’s new director, Brigadier General AKM Md Farhad Hossain, took charge, all our ambulances were put out. Then we were made to clean up the space under the new building so parking could be arranged there. But later our vehicles were moved from there too.”
“If we keep ambulances on the road, the police file cases,” he said. “Several lakh taka was spent to arrange space for ambulances at the hospital. With no other choice, we went on strike to demand parking. The strike will continue until our demand for parking is met.”
The hospital’s director, Brigadier General AKM Farhad Hossain, was called several times and sent a WhatsApp message for comment on the situation, but he did not respond.
Mostak Ahmed, resident surgeon in the hospital’s emergency department, said: “From morning until midday patients were in a way held hostage, kept waiting for hours without being taken. We then informed Shahbagh police station and asked for help, after which outside ambulances were let into the hospital to take patients.” Citing the director, he said the hospital authorities may meet the ambulance owners’ association today to resolve the crisis.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report