Wrong-treatment deaths at hospital

Deaths of patients from wrong treatment at hospitals have lately become a routine incident in the country. Patients continue to die due to questionable styles of treatment, wrong medicinal dosage and haughty interferences of the non-medical staff in the process. Earlier, these tragic deaths used to occur at health complexes and understaffed hospitals in villages and small towns. Lately, these deaths caused by professional irregularities and ignorance are increasingly seen in the large cities like Dhaka and Chattogram. Once it was the private hospitals and clinics which were found to be errant in the main. These days, deaths due to wrong treatment and medication are rampant at the large and specialised public hospitals.

Deaths from wrong treatment are beyond the wildest level of people's imagination in a developed country. And if they happen to occur due to accidental lapses, they lead to due legal battles. But it is a proposition, which is a veritable pipe dream in this country. Few legal fights triggered by aggrieved patients in Bangladesh can remain alive until a satisfactory solution. In such a situation, the helpless patients have to go on banking on the doctors attending them at hospitals. At the end of the day, it is them who will finally ensure the patients' cure from ailments and a safe return home.

Being stuck in such a critical dilemma, the patients can only pray for a divine intervention to make the doctors and hospital nurses more humane and empathetic.

Fayeeza Haidar

Dhanmondi