FROM PAGE 12

Cumilla, Noakhali, Gopalganj, Feni, Munshiganj, Narayanganj, Sherpur, Tangail, Jashore, Sunamganj, Chuadanga, Bagerhat and Madaripur.

Similar ICUs were also established at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital and nine medical college hospitals in Khulna, Dinajpur, Barishal, Sylhet, Faridpur, Tangail, Manikganj, Bogura and Cumilla.

Additionally, five-bed ICUs were set up at the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Dhaka and the Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases in Chattogram.

Over 1,000 staff members, including medical officers and technicians, were recruited to operate the units under the Tk 6,386.64 crore project.

However, their contracts expired in December 2024, six months after the project ended, and the interim government neither renewed their appointments nor hired replacements.

Although the authorities of most medical college hospitals and three district hospitals in Cumilla, Feni and Noakhali managed to keep their ICUs functional, those at 10 district hospitals remained non-functional, Abu Hussain Md Moinul Ahsan, director (hospital) of the Directorate General of Health Services, told this newspaper.

“As the need for ICUs at the district level is more acute for measles patients, we are reviving them.”