COVID-19 Emergency in Bangladesh, the situation in hospitals in the various regions of the country
COVID-19 Emergency in Bangladesh, the situation in hospitals: the outbreak of COVID-19 has put us in an unprecedented global crisis by exposing ourselves to a new kind of human threats and emergencies.
This virus was first confirmed in March 2020 in Bangladesh.
The Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) in Bangladesh reported the first 3 known cases on March 8th 2020.
Later, this pandemic has been spread over the whole country day by day and the number of mortality and morbidity rate has been increasing.
Phase 1 of the COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh
To protect our population and limit the spread of COVID-19 in Bangladesh, the government declared a 38 days lockdown from 23 March to 30 May throughout the nation.
Our health department also takes some preventive steps to counter this health emergency.
The rate of infection seems to be low in March, but in April we saw a rise in the graph.
The new cases grew by almost 1155% in Bangladesh on 11 April, which is the highest rate in Asia.
Between March and April 2020, the reproduction rate of COVID-19 in Bangladesh calculated almost 2, which means one infected person can transmit the virus to another 2 new people.
Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people, is highly populated and detected its first fatality on 18th March 2020 because of COVID-19.
Despite its population, we have only 1,169 ICU beds, which means 0.72 beds per one lakh citizens.
COVID-19 Emergency in Bangladesh, the situation in hospitals
Among the 1,169 beds, the government hospital has only 432 ICU beds and the rest are in the private hospitals.
There are only 550 ventilators found in all hospitals in Bangladesh.
Because of the high need for ICU beds and ventilators, the IEDCR announced to establish another 150 ICU beds for the COVID-19 treatment in the country on 21 March 2020.
By 8 April, 112 ICU beds have been established in several hospitals throughout the country.
Our country faced denial of medical treatment cases due to the fear of transmission of COVID-19.
Several incidences occurred where doctors denied to treat patients with no corona certificate or having symptoms like COVID-19.
For example, a student of Dhaka University, Suman Chakma, died after looking for treatment at several hospitals in Dhaka to treat his lung cancer.
Authority reported similar cases in several hospitals throughout the country where some officials were refused to treat patients.
Some hospitals also made false COVID-19 certificates and sold them to the migrants and this decreases the reputation of Bangladesh in the international society.
Though, the authority took strong action against those hospitals like Reagent Hospital in Dhaka.
After several incidents, the Government of Bangladesh become strict and stand against these incidences.
The Ministry of Health in Bangladesh took several legal steps against those hospitals who denied treatment.
Though, right now the situation comes under control and peoples are now taking their treatment easily from the hospitals.
Article written for Emergency Live by Dr. Shamsul Alam Roky
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