Treatment for Covid-19 and disparity of the hospitals

This is the first time people are realizing that they cannot save their life going outside the country for better medical treatment even if they have a lot of money and power.

Everyone is obliged to take the remedy inside the country, which means a country like Bangladesh is about to face a lot of new challenges in the medical sector .

Segregation is still alive in this crisis as the citizens are not equally treated in hospitals.

People have started complaining that their patients did not get the treatment, which even caused their eventual death

The way public figures, media celebrities, politicians and other celebrities are being treated in the hospitals, , the general public are not dealt with in the same manner.

If we take notice of this week's update, among the fifty eight thousand confirmed cases, around eight hundred have died. The average death rate is rapidly growing  as yesterday's update says 35 people died and 2423 people got confirmed positive in just 24 hours.

Doctors, nurses, police, journalists and many others are gaining the heart of the people with their great efforts.

Their service to the nation is priceless, which they proved with their duties and even sacrificing their lives.

However, sometimes, hospital management is becoming inhuman regarding admitting new patients to hospitals with coronavirus symptoms.

Misconduct, harshness, pushing back to other hospitals—these types of complaints, are demolishing the excellent deeds done by the people of these great professions.

Very disappointing to remark that people who died—or patients who are being treated right now have not received the treatment equally in the hospitals.

If a patient with Covid-19 positive is a public figure and if s/he is emphasized by the newspapers and televisions, the probability of getting a standard treatment is very high.

With due respect, the way the VIPs are getting the treatment, the common people are very far away from it, although everyone has the right to get equal treatment.

Many patients are not getting treatment even with common ailments and patients are dying without getting admission after having visited numerous hospitals.

Patients are also sent to other hospitals without treatment to avoid Coronavirus panic. This irresponsible behavior of the hospital authorities is hurting the mass community.

BBC reported on 12 May that patients that have complained that even if they are asymptomatic, they are not able to get treatment for other diseases even after visiting a number of hospitals.

A seventy-year-old man with a heart condition was rushed to three private hospitals in Dhaka but could not be admitted due to the Coronavirus terror of the hospital authorities

Another incident  happened on 4 May in Satkhira Sadar Hospital.

A housewife gave birth in a van next to the emergency department of the hospital because she was refused admission in fear of Coronavirus.

Would that have happened for any relative of a VIP in the same circumstance?

It is very painful when a patient cannot be admitted after trying six government and private hospitals in the capital.

A patient named Rebecca Sultana Chowdhury had to face this horrific experience before she died on 7 May.

She was not admitted to any hospital on various pretexts including not being able to show documents that she was not affected by the coronavirus.

Relatives repeatedly called 333 and different hospitals but did not get any feedback. She died in an ambulance at around 5 pm after traveling from one hospital to another for nine hours.

Can you imagine what would happen if the same situation was placed for a public figure or politicians?

Incidents like this are happening everyday and general public are being mistreated.This is the difference.

These are only a few examples, actually, there are many incidents happening every day. Why are the common people not being treated appropriately? Why does everyone need consent from the higher authorities to get a secured treatment?

When an Additional Secretary of the government named Gautam Sarkar became sick on 9 May with kidney complications,his relatives carried him from one hospital to another, both private and government.

Finally, he died without getting any treatment even though his daughter herself is a doctor in the government's 'Telesba 333'.

She accused that her father died due to a lack of medical treatment. If media or any higher authority vouced for them, things could have been much different.

The government is aware about the situation and the general public will not take this discrimination any longer.

As a representative of the government, Mr. Mahbub-ul Alam Hanif also mentioned the vulnerability of our health system on 11 May. According to him, "Our lack of capacity and lack of coordination have been revealed."

Despite having more than 10000 private hospitals and clinics around the country addition to all the government hospitals as well, we are still facing troubles because the administration has failed to coordinate with public and private hospitals to implement coronavirus disaster preparedness.due to their irregularities, inequalities and disparities.

However, we still have time to think about this predicament and needan urgent solution where everyone will be treated equally in the hospitals.

At the same time, we should not forget that all citizens in a democratic country always deserve the same right to treatment.

The government should take care of this issue very seriously so that people do not get frightened and lose faith in them.

Hasan Al-Mahmud, was a Fulbright TEA Fellow, Montana State University, USA. He writes on contemporary issues, education, and literature