Perhaps, the setting up of the Bashundhara Covid-19 temporary hospital on a sudden decision and shuttering the same within only a few months is one of the glaring examples of poor planning of Covid-19 management by the health department of Bangladesh. During early months of the virus outbreak in the country last year when the hospital construction was initiated, the government high-ups delivered boastful words about it in battling an invisible enemy. Much expectation was created among the people too. But what had happened in those few months that the hospital had been shut down?
The reason is obvious – the hospital, or the isolation centre in the words of the health minister, proved itself as a white elephant that only ate up funds but yielded very little. In only five months of its establishment, the 2000-bed giant health facility ate up around Tk38.5 crore, according to the health officials.
The health ministry closed the makeshift hospital on September 30 last year “due to lack of patient”. Last week, Health Minister ZahidMaleque told journalists that the government set up the temporary isolation centre with a 2,000-bed capacity. “But there was not a single patient there for six months. Later, the hospital was closed according to a government decision,” he said. However, the then director of the hospital contradicted the minister’s view, saying they treated around 1,000 patients there.
Thus the policymakers’ poverty in making a well-timed decision has drawn staunch criticism once again. Because, the country, right at the moment, requires more modern facilities that can provide treatment as well as isolation services to surging Covid-19 patients. The Bashundhara hospital, equipped with 2,031 general beds, 71 ICU beds, and 10 ventilators, would have been a great aidin this respect with hospitals across the country, especially in the capital, struggling to cope with a rising number of Covid-19 patients. Now, it is necessary to examine which parties benefited from the establishment of this hospital built through an unwise decision.
Likewise, yet another example of improper actions by the authorities concerned is planning for building new Covid-19 hospitals. It is beyond understanding why the government is going to build new facilities instead of reviving the old ones that remain abandoned in different cities due to declining Covid-19 patients.
Before setting up an expensive health facility, for example the Bashundhara hospital, with the public money, the government should have conducted a feasibility study. Had the hospital,or some others, been functional today, many Covid-19 patients who are running to and fro in search for an ICU bed could receive treatment. However, the health department’s failure does not surprise us any longer as almost all government departments have failed to work together to keep the virus transmission under control.
