Covid-19 dedicated hospitals have been struggling to deal with the growing number of critical patients as their ICUs (intensive care units) are getting close to reaching their capacity, officials and healthcare professionals said.
As the second coronavirus wave has started sweeping over the country, the demand for ICU beds at major healthcare facilities in Dhaka and Chattogram keeps rising fast, they said.
Director of Sheikh Russel Gastroliver Institute and Hospital Prof Dr Faruque Ahmed said the number of Covid-19 patients was increasing at the hospital over the past several weeks.
"The pressure on the ICU is extremely high as 15 ICU beds, out of 16 here in the hospital, have already been occupied by critical coronavirus patients. We are receiving many calls but cannot arrange ICUs for them," he said.
The situation in other public Covid-19 hospitals in Dhaka and Chattogram is almost the same. Few ICU beds are available in private Covid hospitals, but pressure keeps growing there as well.
According to the data of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), there are a total of 26 Covid-19 dedicated hospitals in the country and all of them are located in Dhaka and Chattogram.
These facilities have a total of 330 ICU beds, but 258 of them are occupied by the patients as of December 11, the data showed.
Of these hospitals, 14 are managed and operated by the government and they have 138 ICU beds, accounting for 41.81 per cent of total ICU beds. But only 21 ICU beds remained vacant as of Friday morning.
When contacted, DGHS director (hospital) Dr Farid Hossain Miah said the pressure on the hospitals treating coronavirus patients keeps mounting with the advent of winter.
"The pressure, especially on the ICUs, is growing every day," he said.
Considering the fast-rising demand for the ICU beds in this critical time, the DGHS planned to include the ICUs at non-Covid public hospitals in the existing fleet for Covid-19 patients, according to the DGHS director.
Secretary General of Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) Dr Md Ehteshamul Huq Choudhury said the government established general hospitals and medical college and hospitals in various parts of the country over the years, but a good number of them do not have key facilities like ICUs.
Such unplanned development activities are now hurting the whole nation in this critical period, he said.
"If we had properly monitored the development work, we would not have faced such a situation," he said.
Mr Choudhury said the pandemic taught the nation many things and the government must take lessons from it and prepare the facilities in such a way that the country can respond more efficiently to any future crisis.
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