IU medical centre limps for shortage of doctors, staff

13 October 2009, 17:00 PM

Bss, Kushtia

The medical centre of the Islamic University (IU) in the district is limping due to acute shortage of doctors, medicine and nurses causing immense suffering to the patients there. IU sources said the medical centre started in August 2003 to provide round-the-clock service. Authorities at that time promised to appoint adequate number of doctors and staff shortly to run it properly. But the assurance is yet to be materialised. According to the sources, there are now only 10 doctors, nine officials and nine nurses to provide health services for 12,000 students, teachers and officials. Of them, two doctors are on educational leave while four senior medical officers work only six hours a day and five days a week. Five doctors are manning the day shift, two look after the evening shift and only one work at night shift, which is simply inadequate for dealing with the patients. As a result, the centre is facing tremendous difficulties in providing required health services, a senior medical officer said. "It is very difficult to run the centre with such a small number of staff," he lamented. Moreover, there are only two pharmacists at the centre for serving medicine in three shifts a day forcing the authorities to engage peons and computer operators to have the job done. The chief medical officer of the centre, ASM Liakat Ali, told the news agency that the authorities have already sent a note to the university's vice-chancellor Prof M Alauddin urging him to appoint new doctors and staff for the centre. "We are waiting for steps in this regard," he said. "However, we are trying our best to provide maximum health services to the patients with our small number of staff and limited resources," he added.