The cardiac surgery department of Chattogram Medical College Hospital has six surgeons and the capacity to operate six days a week, yet it now manages at most six or seven operations a month. It is the only public hospital offering heart surgery to people from Chattogram and seven nearby districts: Cox's Bazar, Feni, Noakhali, Lakshmipur, Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachhari.

Doctors give two reasons, staff and equipment. The unit asked for 90 staff from the start and works with 40. No perfusionist has ever been appointed; a senior nurse was trained to do the job. One of two operating theatres has broken equipment, only one of four ventilators is really usable, and one each of the two heart-lung and anaesthesia machines works.

From April 2014 to 22 September the department carried out 912 operations, about 90 percent of them open-heart surgery. An operation costs Tk 90,000 to Tk 1.2 lakh here against Tk 3-5 lakh at three private hospitals in the city. Twenty-two of 40 beds and three of eight ICU beds are working, and patients wait three to four weeks on general beds.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics' 2025 survey found more than 31 people per thousand nationwide with heart problems, and 34 to 36 per thousand in Chattogram and Barishal divisions. The department has asked for 35 kinds of equipment worth an estimated Tk 14-19 crore.

Department head Professor Kazi Abul Azad said requests go in every year and that the unit needs staff and supplies as well as machines. Assistant Professor Ahsan Uddin Mahmud said that with enough staff and equipment open-heart surgery could be done every day.

The cardiology department is short too. One of three cath labs has been broken since October 2021 and another has no generator connection. In the first seven months of the year it performed 1,353 angiograms and fitted 661 stents. Hospital director Brigadier General Mohammad Taslim Uddin said the needs would be sent to the health ministry and that two new buildings would house seven cath labs.

The report is by Prothom Alo's Chattogram correspondent Fahim Al Samad.

Source: Prothom Alo