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Doctors call for trauma centres to tackle crisis

MIZANUR KHAN
Doctors, treating the victims of the August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League rally, demand emergency trauma centres in big cities soon, as numerous victims of natural disasters and accidents wait in hospital corridors for treatment.
"Grenade-wounded people rushed to hospital on the evening of August 21, but there was no room for a single victim. No hospital can treat many at the same time," said Dr Alam, a doctor in the emergency department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).
On the day of the carnage that left 20 people killed and more than 300 injured, blood-smeared people were lying uncared-for on the floor of the emergency unit. Cries for blood and help rang out everywhere. Thousands rushed with blood bags to the emergency unit, turning the DMCH into a virtual war hospital home to injured and mutilated bodies.
DMCH Director Nazmul Huda said about 200 people took primary aid from the hospital, while 40 people were treated officially on August 21.
Most victims first went to the DMCH with injuries and left it, as there was no room and only two doctors and three nurses like other days were on duty at the emergency unit.
The injured were also taken to Bangladesh Medical College, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and Hospital (BSMMUH) and other hospitals. "We really need emergency trauma centres where we can treat such victims," said Dr Saiful Islam, BSMMUH emergency medical officer.
Selim Chowdhury, who took about 200 splinters in the lower part of his body, including legs and pelvis, said: "I rushed to the DMCH alone but did not find a place amid a large number of patients. Then I went back home by taxi. My family took me to the DMCH again 12 hours after the bloodbath."
"Many are injured in natural disasters and fatal accidents at a time and need quick treatment. Developed countries have emergency trauma centres to treat the victims in time," said NK Alam, consultant of the DMCH casualty department.
"The government should set up emergency trauma centres in Dhaka, Khulna, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi and Barisal to face such a crisis," said Dr Firoz Kader, head of the DMCH casualty department.
The casualty department lacks trained doctors, nurses and wardboys. "It is impossible to carry emergency tests and run urgent operations with run-down machines. We are also understaffed to make things worse," another doctor said.
There is no intensive care unit, high dependency unit, blood bank and radiology and pathology services at the casualty department that houses 60 beds -- 36 for men
and 24 for women and children -and where one associate professor, two consultants, one assistant registrar and four medical officers work.
The casualty department has only one operating theatre (OT), but about 30,000 people are treated here a year, according to the record available.
"We cannot operate on two
patients at the same time as one table, out of two, has long been out of order. This time five injured people were needed to be operated on at the same time," a doctor said, asking not to be named.
DMCH doctors said the emergency unit experienced the same after the bomb blasts on the Communist Party's rally on January 20, 2001 and fatal blasts at Ramna
Batamul on April 14 the same year.
The DMCH director said the hospital would send a proposal to the health ministry to set up trauma centres as early as possible although the hospital has limited space. "The ministry has already asked us to expand and modernise the emergency department and we are working on it," he said.