Nearly seventy years after it opened, Pabna Mental Hospital still has no waiting room at its outpatient department. Families who bring patients from across the country crowd in front of the department or wait in the open field and under trees, Ajker Patrika reported on World Mental Health Day.
The hospital, founded in 1957, now has 500 beds. Its outpatient department sees 100 to 150 patients a day but has been running for decades from one small old building. Many families set off the day before and reach Pabna at midnight or dawn, with nowhere at the hospital to stay or rest.
On Thursday, outside the department, the paper met Abdul Latif, an elderly man from Mehendiganj in Barishal who had brought his son for treatment. Arriving at night with nowhere to stay, father and son spent the night on the veranda of the police outpost next to the hospital. Parimal Kumar Mandal, from Dighalia in Khulna, got off the train at Ishwardi at night and spent it at the station with his patient. "If there were a waiting room, it would help everyone," he said.
Saiful Islam, from Magura, said there was no decent place to sit or rest after travelling so far, and that a place to stay would help everyone.
The hospital's resident psychiatrist, AKM Shafiul Azam, acknowledged that there is nowhere for outpatients or their relatives to rest or stay. The government is considering turning Pabna Mental Hospital into an international-standard hospital, he said; that project would include a separate ward from which patients would be admitted in turn, and there are plans for a separate hall or dormitory for relatives.
This year's World Mental Health Day theme is "Lived Experiences Heard: Real Voices, Real Change". The families waiting outside the hospital are among the voices it asks to be heard. The report is by Ajker Patrika.
Photo: Imtiaz Tonmoy / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0); Pabna Mental Hospital
Source: Ajker Patrika
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