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Children deprived of healthcare in public hospitals, cites survey

Belal Hossain Biplob
***Doctors in public hospitals are not friendly towards children and, in most cases, remained absent from duties***
Children aged between 12 and 18 years are deprived of proper healthcare services at public hospitals as doctors there are not friendly towards them and, in most cases, remained absent from duties, says a survey on children.
“Most of the doctors remained careless while providing treatment to children as their attention was focused either on taking snacks or talking to staff or pharmaceutical representatives.
“The doctors were found absent during work hours in 71 percent of the cases surveyed,’’ the survey notes.
The survey, “The context of children in healthcare services in Bangladesh for good governance”, was carried out by child members of Child Parliament, a national-level children's organisation, with assistance from Save the Children.
The Daily Star recently got a copy of the study, which was conducted in November last year and was based on the experiences of 466 children from 61 districts regarding the country's healthcare services.
Around 70 percent of these children expressed dissatisfaction over the standard of treatment as the doctors were not friendly towards them and the consultation
rooms had no restrictions over smoking, it added.
The situation was made worse by the lack ofclean environment, ventilation and proper lighting at the hospitals, said the study.
Dhaka Shishu Hospital Director Prof Monjur Hossain, in the investigation, said certain practices of doctors like misbehaving with child patients and smoking and talking over mobile phones while treating them creates a negative image on the
child's mind.
Around 69 percent of those surveyed failed to access healthcare facilities for many reasons including lack of adequate information on the location of the doctor's consultation room. Moreover, children have to stand in the same queue as adults to collect tickets for consultation services, observed the survey.
Save the Children Director (Child Rights and Participation) Sultan
Mahmud said public hospitals (except those specialising in children) had no special facilities for children.
“Proper treatment cannot be ensured to children at public hospitals as the facilities available are not free. Besides, the doctors, eager to get over their duties, prescribe drugs without properly consulting the children," he said.
The survey also focused on underprivileged children's access to healthcare services, pointing out that the hospital staff and doctors consider them as “street urchins” and are negligent in their treatment.
The United Nations, in its ordinance on child rights, has made it mandatory for its member countries to take necessary steps to ensure proper treatment of children without engaging in any form of discrimination.
The Daily Star recently talked to some children, including underprivileged ones, who echoed the findings of the survey.
A 12-year-old underprivileged boy, Alamin Hossain, resident of the city's Mohammadpur, said he once returned empty-handed when he tried to avail the service at his hometown union health complex in Senbagh ofNoakhali district.
“I was burning with high fever when I sought treatment there. But
both the health complex staff and its doctor said they did not have the drug needed to treat my illness," said a frustrated Alamin.
Some slum children at Farmgate said they stopped seeking treatment at public hospitals after the hospital staff, on several occasions, looked down upon them and did not let them consult the doctors just because they resided in slums.
One such boy, Sumon, 10 years of age, collects scrap materials to make a living and lives near Tejgaon. He claimed that he hardly remembers the last time he took medicine to cure his sickness because he has no guardian to look after him, let alone take him to a hospital.
The study suggested some measures to ensure better healthcare treatment for children.
These include arranging special and separate sections for children in all hospitals, building a child friendly environment, offering free of cost treatment and tests and keeping adequate stocks of medicine for them.
In the suggestions, parliamentarian Prof Dr MS Akbar said there should be a course on behavioural science in the curriculum of those studying medicine so that they can train them up to be more friendly and attentive towards child patients.