The government has adopted a mega plan to modernise the healthcare system and make it super-efficient to better serve the people with particular focus on treatment of coronavirus or COVID-19 patients, sources said.

They said that in order to execute the plan, the government has allocated in the budget for 2020-21 fiscal year Tk 8,000 crore more than it earmarked in the last FY’s budget, giving priority to the improvement of the healthcare system in Bangladesh.

The plan aims to upgrade the health system and make the hospitals capable of facing any future Covid-19-like crisis, according to them.

The plan was adopted amid the shortcomings of most of the public hospitals in providing patients with satisfactory healthcare services.

Experts say many of the hospitals continue to function with huge vacancies of doctors, health technologists and nurses, almost empty drug stores, and without central oxygen supply system, in many cases, emergency medical equipment and functioning ICU facilities.

Health sector officials said the government has committed to better serve the population with more efficient and comprehensive healthcare system as the fight against coronavirus has exposed the poor state of the healthcare system (tertiary care) in Bangladesh.

Apart from the recruitment of huge number of doctors, nurses and technologists, adequate number of new hospital buildings will be constructed, latest technologies adopted through purchasing modern medical equipments and adequate number of ambulances and other support vehicles purchased.

Speaking on the issue of developing the healthcare system, Professor Abul Kalam Azad, Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), said, “A proposal for the recruitment of manpower in the vacant posts is being sent to the Ministry of Health soon.”

“New laboratories and research centres would also be set up at different places in the country to improve diagnostic facilities,” said an official concerned.

The government in its national budget for the 2020-21 FY has allotted over Tk 33,000 crore, which is over Tk 8,000 crore more than the allocation in the previous budget of 2019-20.

A Health Ministry official source said, “The World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have also come forward to help Bangladesh develop its health sector to fight coronavirus pandemic.”  

Meanwhile, a project involving Tk 1,127 crore funded by the WB has already been approved by the government.

Another project costing Tk 1,400 crore is waiting for government approval. Under the projects, complete modern central ventilation system would be purchased for different hospitals while Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and isolation centres would be installed where required.

Medical scanner machines would be installed at different land, sea and airports.As part of the plan, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in late May approved a proposal to recruit 2,000 doctors and 3,000 health technologists, technicians and radiographers to face the increasing demands in the fight against coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Bangladesh.

Earlier, in the first week of May, the government already recruited 2,000 doctors and 5,000 nurses.According to sources, the government already made some urgent developments in the health sector by improving facilities in many existing hospitals and purchasing huge medical equipment.

However, there are not enough doctors, nurses, technologists and technicians as per the requirement. As a result, the health services to the people are being hampered while the machineries and equipment could not be put to use as desired.

At present there are around 30,000 doctors, 41,000 nurses and 5,500 health technologists in the country. The number of nurses and health technologists are far less than the actual need.

According to the guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the standard is that there should be at least three nurses and five health technologists against each doctor. Based on the WHO recommendations Bangladesh should have around 90,000 nurses, and 150,000 technologists which is nowhere near.

According to the sources, due to shortages of health technologists in public hospital laboratories, most of the machineries and medical equipment remain unutilised.

Besides, the process of COVID-19 test is facing disarray for the same reason. There are wide allegations that patients are not getting corona tests facilities on time.