CMCH understaffed for decades!
It is unthinkable that the Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) is operating today with the same staff levels it had back in 1969. Nearly half a century on, the number of departments has increased from 3 to 41; bed capacity has increased from 500 in 1969 to 1,313 in 2013 and patients receiving treatment from the premier government-run hospital in the second largest city in the country has gone up exponentially. As things stand now, some 437 nurses working three shifts cater to 2,500 patients, which boils down to 145 nurses available at any given time to tend to this very large number of patients. The current state of staff is far below what is recommended by the World Health Organisation which states that there should be 1 nurse for every four patients.
Bangladesh of course is not a rich country, but that there is only 1 nurse for every 15 patients at CMCH is because there have been no new inductions in hospital staff for so many decades. It defies imagination how successive governments went on expanding department after department regardless of the fact that most of them are not manned by consultants or administrative staff. As per a report in this newspaper we find that most of these positions are manned by postgraduate students, which again, is an unacceptable situation.
We are informed that a committee is being formed that will decide on a new organisational chart detailing doctor, nurse and technician needs. This draft plan will have to be vetted by the health ministry and then perhaps, recruitment process can be finalised. It can only be hoped that the ministry will prioritise manpower allocation to a workable staff to patient ratio.
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