Patients with respiratory problems at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) have been suffering immensely due to short supply of oxygen for quite a long time.
Several patients allegedly have died of breathing difficulties in the last one and a half months for lack of oxygen.
Ihe hospital has been making do with short supply of oxygen for the last few years but during the last one and a half months things have turned from bad to worse as Bangladesh Oxygen Company (BOC) Ltd cut their supply as DMCH failed to pay its outstanding dues, said authorities concerned.
DMCH ward-2 (male medicine) sources said on March 17 the ward received only two oxygen cylinders against its demand for eight. Wards-19 and 21 did not receive any supply of oxygen on March 11, they added.
On March 12 the hospital got only 62 cylinders of oxygen for two days against the demand for at least 200 cylinders.
I he DMCH requires around Tk 1.5 crore to spend on oxygen but the government allocated onlyTk42.5 lakh for the last fiscal year, sources said.
Ihe BOC has reduced supply of oxygen as the hospital failed to pay dues worth I k 45 lakh for the last few years, said sources at DMCH.
Hospital sources said oxygen is provided in two waysthrough pipeline and in
cylinder. Generally oxygen cylinders are used in all 45 wards and in around 100 cabins while in operating theatre (OT), coronary care unit (CCU), intensive care unit (ICU) and in emergency wards oxygen is provided through pipelines.
A few years ago DMCH was an 800-bed hospital, which has now 1700 beds, but supply of oxygen to the hospital has increased very little compared to the rise in the number of patients, DMCH sources said.
Dr Faruq, in-charge of medicine store, said on an average about 1900-2200 patients stay at the hospital’s wards and cabins including the burn unit every day but arrangement of oxygen is still the same as when it accommodated 800 patients each day. Wards sources said critical patients prescribed oxygen support for several hours uninterruptedly are given it in turn putting their lives at risk. A patient needing oxygen for 10 hours at a stretch receives it only for 2-3 hours.
Victims' relatives alleged it takes a day or sometimes even more to have signatures of officials concerned including doctors on prescribed forms of the hospital to have an oxygen cylinder.
Surya Banu, 65, admitted on March 1 at bed-18 under Ward-21 (medicine ward for women) died on March 11 afternoon. Her son said his mother had been suffering from breathing problem for three days before she died.
He requested doctors and nurses at the ward to give his mother oxygen but they were helpless as there was no oxygen cylinder.
However, her mother had been given oxygen support for an hour only two days before her death, he said adding that doctors sent him to emergency block to have oxygen just three hours before her death.
As he was asked to collect signatures of on-duty nurse of the ward and doctor and the emergency medical officer he had to rush to tlic persons concerned for several times for signatures and by the time his mother had passed away.
Another patient Khodeza Begum, 60, admitted to ward-19 of the hospital on March 3, left it on that very day after observing the miserable conditions of other patients there.
Her son Alfaz said he would better borrow money for his mother's treatment at a private clinic instead of DMCH where patients die without oxygen. Khodeza was also admitted with breathing problem.
Doctor Murad Hossain, assistant registrar of wards-2 and 21, told this correspondent over phone that Surya Banu might have died due to lack of oxygen support but he was not sure of it.
It seems inhuman since they are compelled to remove oxygen support from a patient to give it to another worse one but they have to do this, he added.
Director of DMCH Brig Gen Abdus Shaheed Khan told The Daily Star on March 17 that he had informed the ministry concerned of the inadequate supply of oxygen and the ministry had pledged sufficient allocation to ease the problem very soon.