60 percent of Covid beds in hospitals are still empty: Health Minister

Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque has said, "As a result of proper initiatives taken by the present government, 60 percent of the beds in Covid Hospitals are now vacant. There are no patients in half of the ICU beds dedicated to Covid patients. Although it took some time to understand the situation at the beginning, now the medical sector of the country is in the right position for the treatment of Covid-19."

Zahid Maleque made the comments while addressing the signing ceremony of the annual performance agreement with the Health Education Department at the health ministry conference room on Thursday morning. He was the chief guest at the ceremony.

Regarding the low number of Covid-19 patients in the hospitals, the Health Minister further said, "The government has been able to take some initiatives to deal with Covid-19 quickly. At first, only Dhaka Medical College had a central oxygen system. Now about 70 hospitals are being provided with a central oxygen system including some in district cities. Through our telemedicine system, hundreds of doctors are providing online medical services to Covid-19 patients. In addition, some new effective medical services are being provided to Covid dedicated hospitals as per the guidelines of the World Health Organization. As a result, the rate of infection in the country is slowly declining."

Responding to a question on the declining number of coronavirus tests, the health minister said that the reluctance of people to take the test, the flood disaster and the lack of asymptomatic testing everywhere could have reduced the rate a bit. He also mentioned in the meeting that 30,000 nurses will be recruited shortly.

Agreements were signed with 5 departments at the meeting chaired by the Department of Health Education Secretary Md Ali Noor. The health minister called upon the department heads to work with transparency and efficiency as per the guidelines of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.