Most dengue patients at Chattogram Medical College Hospital (CMCH) are being treated on verandah floors. Many have no mosquito nets and saline stands are short; some drips hang from ward windows, and with no fans, relatives fan patients by hand, Zahedul Kabir reported in Dainik Azadi.
Hospital sources said the women's block of medicine ward 16 was turned into a dengue ward in July, but it has only 32 beds. At midday on Tuesday 48 of the 80 dengue patients admitted were on the verandah floor. Staff say dengue patients must be kept under nets at all times, because a mosquito that bites an infected person can pass the virus to a healthy one.
Nur Mohammad, a patient from Fatikchhari, said he was suffering on the verandah because no bed was free. Amir Hossain of Patiya said his father was getting worse since being admitted.
CMCH director Brigadier General Mohammad Taslim Uddin said no ward has space and every ward is over capacity; patients would be better served if the railway hospital in the city's CRB area were made a dedicated dengue hospital. Chattogram divisional health director Dr Sheikh Fazle Rabbi said the railway hospital is not under the health ministry and has no budget, but the ministry has been written to.
Professor Dr A S M Zahed of the CMCH medicine department said there is no need to panic over dengue, but patients with heart disease, diabetes or kidney disease and pregnant women need extra care; nor should people panic over platelets, which rise quickly once they start to recover. Civil Surgeon Dr Mohammad Sajedur Rahman said intermittent rain is leaving pools where Aedes mosquitoes breed, and water must not be allowed to stand for more than three days.
According to the civil surgeon's office, 5,001 people in Chattogram have had dengue this year and 21 have died; 87 were in hospital in the latest 24 hours. Last year the district recorded 4,864 cases and 27 deaths, in 2024 4,323 cases and 45 deaths, and in 2023 14,087 cases and 107 deaths.
Photo: Shahinur70 / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: Dainik Azadi
Comments
(0)