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DMCH's neurosurgery department lacks doctors

KAUSAR ISLAM AYON
The emergency operation theatre of the neurosurgery department at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) has failed to provide proper service for the last 14 months.
For this reason, emergency surgeries have been seriously hampered and patients reportedly have died even after failing to get the required treatment.
In one recent incident, a 14-year-old named Ariful Islam died on June 11. His family sources said they had rushed the teenager to the hospital at around 7pm on that day after he had suffered a head injury.
The on-duty doctors decided on an emergency operation but said they could not take him to the operation theatre until 12pm the next day.
"Although the duty doctors told us that my son needed an emergency operation, they could not manage to do so before another 17 hours. My son died without any treatment," said Ariful's father Saidur Rahman.
"We are ready for an operation at any time but we do not have a permanent anesthetist for this department. That is why we often can not have the surgery on time," said Professor Dr. Shafiqe Uddin Ahamed.
DMCH sources said that on the holidays, only one anesthetist is available for three departments -- gynecology, casualty and neurosurgery.
"If an operation is taking place in any one of these departments, then the two other departments cannot go for a surgery as the anesthetist, who is most important for any operation, is not available" said
Ahamed.
The neurosurgery department at DMCH, where around a 100 patients arrive every day for treatment, has no indoor medical officer (IMO). No IMO has been
employed for last two years, said sources. Only four doctors are running the department within trainees and students. The doctors working at this department admitted that they were unable to take care of
the patients properly due to the lack of IMOs.
"Everyday 30 to 35 patients get admitted and we are have to provide emergency service to 70 to 80 people. The interns, nurses and ward boys are doing jobs which are supposed to be the responsibility of specialists," said a doctor.
There are 60 IMOs under the director of the DMCH director and he can attach them to different departments according to the need. But insiders DMCH said IMOs are reluctant to work with complicated cases of the neurosurgery department.
"Although the IMOs are under the director, they however manage to change their department by taking special permissions from the ministry of health or from the Director General's (DG) office," said an official of DMCH. "Most number of IMOs can be found in departments like casualty, gynecology and medicine as the income is higher there compared to the neurosurgery department.
"It is alarming that an important and sensitive department like neurosurgery is being completely run by internee doctors. It is putting the lives of patients at risk and also tarnishing the reputation of the hospital. But for some mysterious reason, the department is still without any indoor medical officer," said an official of DMCH. He added that even the assistant registrar of the department was a student of the medical college.
"We are providing smooth and efficient service to the patients even without the IMOs. I admit that the service would have been better if we had some IMOs attached to the department," said Professor ShafiqeUddin Ahamed.