Hospitals, schools and crowded places in Mymensingh lack adequate handwashing facilities, and the absence of soap or handwash at fixed points is raising health risks. 15 October is Global Handwashing Day, and this year's theme is 'Be a Handwashing Hero!'
Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, a 1,000-bed hospital, has an average of 4,000 patients admitted each day, and people complain there is no soap or handwash in its toilets. Abdur Rashid said people have to pay to use the toilets, but there is no soap to wash their hands.
The hospital's assistant director (administration), Dr Mohammad Mainuddin Khan, said handwashing facilities should be standard, but since the Covid pandemic they could not be kept up because soap and handwash left anywhere in the hospital get stolen.
Most students wash their hands, but their institutions lack supplies. Istiak Ahmed Saad of Nasirabad College said teachers always advise handwashing, but the college has no facility. At Government Laboratory School there is a place to wash hands but no soap, student Abir Sarkar said, and assistant head teacher Hosne Ara Lovely acknowledged the facilities are inadequate. Two Commerce College students said soap is provided but they are uncomfortable using it because everyone shares it.
Muhammad Chhamiul Haque, executive engineer of the Department of Public Health Engineering in Mymensingh, said the day would be observed again this year to raise health awareness. Civil Surgeon Mohammad Fakhrul Hasan Chowdhury said washing hands before and after various tasks is essential to stay healthy. The report is by Ilias Ahmed, Ajker Patrika's Mymensingh correspondent.
Photo: Serenity / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0); a representative picture of handwashing with soap
Source: Ajker Patrika
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