Mental Hospital, Pabna FE Photo PABNA, June 19: Patients at the Mental Hospital, Pabna, the lone specialised mental hospital in the country, are deprived of necessary health services due to severe manpower shortage and other significant reasons.
The insufficient and substandard food supplied at the 500-bed government-run mental health care facility rather worsens the patients' condition.
To sum up, the hospital authorities appear to be indifferent to arranging required service and treatment, resulting in a very subhuman state for the patients.
Mohammad Hossain Ganguly, the then civil surgeon of Pabna, planned to establish the mental hospital in 1957 and in July same year, operation of the hospital started at Shitalai Jamidarbari of the district with a 60-bed setup.
In May 1958, the hospital was permanently shifted to a building in Hemayetpur of Pabna Sadar upazila, about six kilometres west of Pabna town. Later construction of the hospital complex was started on 111.25 acres of land there.
The psychiatric hospital was upgraded to a 500-bed one in 1996. The hospital now has 150 paying beds and 350 non-paying beds.
While non-paying beds remain occupied, paying beds mostly lie vacant.
Earlier several times different quarters raised the demand of increasing the number of non-paying beds, but to no effect.
Safqat Waheed, director of the hospital, told The Financial Express, "The 500-bed psychiatric hospital has an acute shortage of manpower including doctors. There is a shortage of equipment required for advanced treatment."
He said, "The total number of sanctioned posts in the hospital is 507. Of the total 31 posts, only 16 doctors are working and 15 posts have been lying vacant for a long time. But the vacant posts have not been filled even after many days."
An electroencephalogram (EEG) machine has remained unused for the past two decades due to lack of skilled manpower.
The hospital also lacks research facilities. A total of 435 patients including 102 female were admitted to the hospital as of Tuesday (June 6) in its 19 wards including 14 wards for males and five for females.
According to sources, the hospital's outdoor unit sees arrival of 150 to 200 patients from different parts of the country every day and requires a large number of staff members to manage them.
There are no sufficient toilets in the hospital for the patients and their relatives to respond to the call of nature after their arrival.
There is no accommodation for night-time stay for relatives or attendants in case a patient is brought from far away urgently.
Accommodation and food arrangements have to be made from about seven kilometres away from the hospital.
The hospital authorities said that even after informing the Ministry of Health several times about the existing problems of the hospital, no solution has come yet.
Ahsan Habib Ahmed, chief assistant officer of the hospital, said, "Discussions are underway in the Ministry of Health to upgrade it to a 1,100-bed hospital. Although official approval has not been received, the project proposal has been submitted. We hope that the project will get approval soon, which will greatly improve the current situation."
The hospital has not undergone any major renovations since its inception. Even the accommodation allocated for the nurses is currently being run as an outpatient facility as there is no infrastructure to provide outpatient services.
When it rains, water drops off from the roof of the almost ramshackle building.
The director also said, "Government has decided to upgrade the mental hospital in Pabna to the state-of-the-art world standard in order to ensure proper mental health care due to the increase in the number of mental patients in the country."
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