Covid treatment device prices rocket in Bangladesh
Prices of medical equipment, including oxygen cylinders, needed to treat Covid patients have abnormally increased amid a huge demand for them while substandard kits have hit the market in the absence of proper monitoring by the government.
Abu Sayed Khan, an inhabitant of Narayanganj district, came to Dhaka by a rickshaw spending Tk 700 as there were no other transports available during the current restrictions.
His 64-year-old mother Sultana Banu, who has caught Covid-19, managed to get an ICU bed at a hospital in the river-port city at 9:30pm on Monday.
‘Waiting after eight hours, we have managed to obtain the ICU bed at the Narayanganj 300-bed hospital. But physicians asked us to collect a non-invasive ventilation full-face mask, required for an ICU patient but not available at the hospital,’ Sayed said.
A medical staff suggested that he should go to Dhaka for the NIV full-face mask as the item was not sold in Narayanganj.
‘When I reached Dhaka at about 10:30pm Monday all the medical equipment shops at Topkhana were closed. I collected a retailer’s phone number from its signboard and called the owner. After I requested him to provide a prescribed mask for my seriously-ill mother, he asked me to wait in front of the shop,’ he added.
There is also a serious crisis of the mask on the market, he said, adding that the shop owner gave him a mask at about 11:15pm for Tk 2,500.
Swapan Shil, managing partner of the Surgical Plus Scientific and Logistics outlet, who provided Sayed with the NIV mask told New Age that they had sold an NIV full-face mask for maximum Tk 1,500 a month ago.
He said that the demand for NIV masks, oxygen cylinders, nebulisers, high-flow nasal cannulas, oxygen-flow meters, pulse oximeters and other personal protective equipment had, meanwhile, gone up abnormally.
Bangladesh logged the highest 11,525 daily Covid infections and the second highest 163 deaths from the disease in the past 24-hour period till Tuesday morning.
The national case positivity rate, climbing for more than a week, reached 31.46 per cent on the day.
With the latest figures, the total death toll has hit 15,392 and the total infections 9,66,406 across the country since March 8, 2020.
The price of a local empty oxygen cylinder is now Tk 14,000 which was Tk 5,000 a month ago, Swapan said, adding that importers have recently imported some oxygen cylinders from Dubai at high prices and they are selling them for Tk 18,000 apiece.
Swapan went on that currently the oxygen cylinder price ranged from Tk 14,000 to Tk 25,000.
Substandard oxygen cylinders and other devices have hit the market taking advantage of the Covid treatment device crisis.
Abdul Wahid, manager of SA Surgical, another outlet at Topkhana, said that they were selling medical equipment online.
Because of the online selling, Wahid’s shop maintains a tally of district-wise orders.
As the tally showed, they have received maximum recent orders, in order of quantity, from the districts of Jashore, Satkhira, Jhenaidah, Bogura, Magura, Narail, Bagerhat, Khulna, Pirojpur, Jhalokati, Kushtia, Chapainawabganj, Chuadanga, Thakurgaon, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Nilphamari and Cumilla.
According to the Directorate General of Health Services, 15 per cent of the total infected persons are in rural areas.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh president Ghulam Rahman said that the government should find a way to manage the medical equipment market.
He suggested that the authority concerned should conduct regular market monitoring to check over-pricing of the lifesaving medical devices.
According to DGHS line director and spokesperson Mohammad Robed, the government has no mechanism to monitor the private market or fixing prices of devices.
He said that the authority was trying to ensure adequate oxygen support and other devices at public hospitals.
About substandard devices making inroads into the market, he said that the suggested monitoring by the health ministry was very difficult in this time of ‘emergency’.
According to a health ministry report, there are 23, 089 oxygen cylinders, 1,603 high-flow nasal cannulas and 1,522 oxygen concentrators at the public and private Covid hospitals in the country.
However, there exists no estimate of demand for oxygen cylinders and other Covid-treatment related equipment and devices in the country.
News Courtesy:
https://www.newagebd.net/article/143015/covid-treatment-device-prices-rocket-in-bangladesh
