32 patients die in SOMCH in 24 hours 10 infants among the dead, health experts term it ‘unusual’ -

Ten babies, including five newborns, died in a span of just 10 hours and 22 more patients of different ages died in 24 hours in Osmani Medical College and Hospital in Sylhet till Tuesday morning causing panic among the patients and their attendants. Relatives of the deceased alleged wrong treatments and negligence in providing timely care by physicians had caused the deaths. Health experts in Dhaka found ‘quite unusual’ the deaths of 10 children in about 10 hours from Monday night through Tuesday morning at the children’s ward of the government hospital in Sylhet. SOMCH additional director Abdus Salam confirmed that 32 patients, including 10 infants, died in the hospital in 24 hours. ‘Death of 10 patients in a single day at the baby ward is unusual,’ he said, adding that one or two patients died everyday on an average at the ward. He, however, claimed that the death of 22 patients, but the infants, was not unusual.

The hospital director brigadier general Abdus Sabur Miah told New Age that a three-member committee headed by the medicine department chief Ismail Hossain Patwari had been formed to probe the deaths allegedly for wrong treatment and negligence by the physicians. Of the newborns who died between 10:00pm Monday and 7:00am Tuesday, five were aged between three and five days and the rest five were between two and a half months and three years old, according to the records available at the hospital. The records showed that 22 more patients, who were undergoing treatment at the SOMCH for different diseases, also died in 24 hours till 8:00am Tuesday.

On an average, some 1,800 patients are admitted to the 900-bed hospital each day and 10 to 12 patients usually die at the hospital daily, the statistics available with the hospital showed. Fatema Aktar of Kalapara in Sylhet city alleged that she gave birth to a girl child in the hospital on Sunday afternoon, but the newborn died at the baby ward on early Tuesday as no doctors were available. Fatema alleged that the condition of her child had started deteriorating from about 10:30pm Monday, but she did not find any physician on duty at the baby ward for check-up until the newborn died at around 4:00am Tuesday. ‘As it became clear that death was approaching my child, I requested the on-duty nurse repeatedly to call a doctor or do whatever she could, but she paid no attention,’ Fatema told New Age. Tara Miah, an auto-rickshaw driver of Sheikhghat neighbourhood in the city, said that his wife Nilufar Begum had given birth to a child in the hospital on Sunday and the newborn died there early Tuesday because of ‘wrong treatment’ and negligence by the physicians. ‘There was no doctor on duty at the baby ward till Tuesday morning,’ Tara Miah alleged. Ruhul Amin, private secretary to the SOMCH director, claimed that nine patients who were admitted to the hospital in full cardiac arrests – six of them referred to the hospital by different private hospitals and clinics in the city – died in 24 hours.

The probe committee has been asked to submit its report in next three days, Abdus Sabur Miah said. ‘Action would be taken against the physicians and nurses concerned, if the allegations of negligence in discharging duties are proved.’ A number of mothers and attendants of patients admitted to the pediatric department of SOMCH said they were worried over the situation in the hospital. Experts demanded proper investigations to find out the reasons for the deaths of a so many children in a short span of time at a major hospital. Terming the incidents ‘unusual’ and ‘unexpected’, former Bangladesh Medical Association president and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University pro-vice chancellor Rashid-e-Mahbub said it manifested the overall mismanagement in the health sector. Referring to the allegation of negligence by doctors in treatment of patients in the state-run hospital, he also said that the government should find out through a proper investigation why such ‘shocking’ incidents happened.

Former director general of Health Directorate Abdur Rahman Khan termed the incident ‘unprecedented’. ‘In winter many children die of cold related diseases all over the country, but the death toll in the largest hospital in Sylhet region is quite unusual,’ he observed. BIRDEM director general Nazmun Nahar urged the committees to investigate the matter properly and said, ‘Viral infection and problems in medication could be some other causes’. She also expressed her surprise how the hospital authorities handed over the bodies without autopsies. Rashid-e-Mahbub, said that both private and government hospitals, excluding BIRDEM, did not maintain any treatment audit after a patient’s death. A treatment audit was treatment records that show whether the treatment given to a patient before death was right or wrong, he added

. - See more at: http://newagebd.net/94227/32-patients-die-in-somch-in-24-hours/#sthash.ctSehjv1.dpuf