Patients' woes mount further

The ongoing work abstention by interns severely affected the healthcare services at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH) for the second consecutive day yesterday.
A single doctor was seen attending patients going from one ward to another, which made the delivery of treatment services delayed, said hospital sources.
No major operations on patients were performed at the operating theatre while many patients were seen leaving the hospital in fear of lack of treatment.  
 Poor patients at the hospital were the worst affected as they do not have resources for treatment at private hospitals.
Ruhul Amin, of Chapainawabganj, had to wait for three hours at the surgery ward to get his wounds stitched by a doctor.
"How could a single doctor tackle 70 to 80 patients at a ward? How could he write prescription or perform stitches at one go? Patients are waiting in a long queue to receive treatment," said a nurse.
RMCH Director Brig Gen AKM Nasir Uddin, however, claimed that all designated doctors were performing their duties and the healthcare services did not fall.
"Interns are not particularly responsible for treating patients… They are getting training here," he said.

He added that interns had promised him to join their duties within 4:00pm. But they had not returned to their work stations till the filing of this report at 10:00pm yesterday.
Talking to this correspondent yesterday, the RMCH director said the Sunday night's incident happened following a misunderstanding over a trivial issue.
On Monday night, two injured journalists -- Assaduzzaman Asad of Amar Desh and Mahfuzur Rahman Rubel of ATN News -- filed two cases with Rajpara Police Station.
In their case statements, the journalists accused seven people mentioning their names and 150 unnamed interns for attacking 10 journalists and damaging their laptops and cameras.
Meanwhile, journalists formed a human chain at Shaheb Bazar in Rajshahi city yesterday, protesting the interns' attack on journalists.
They formed an 11-member steering committee to continue their movement until the authorities arrested the interns who had attacked the newsmen.
The journalist leaders also met the vice chancellor of Rajshahi University and submitted a memorandum with a demand for not issuing certificates to the interns responsible for the attack.