Public woes mount as three union health centres shut

SYLHET, Nov 03: Public sufferings have escalated as three union health and family welfare centres in Shantiganj upazila of Sunamganj district have been closed down on account of various reasons.
Failing to avail service from the facilities, a good number of local inhabitants return home disappointed almost every day.
Women and children alongside elderly people belonging to the low-income group are the worst sufferers for the situation.
Suffering people have failed to get necessary response even despite repeated appeals made to the authorities concerned, sources said.
The stalemate in the centres located in Shimulbak, Patharia and Pashchim Birgaon unions is mainly due to shortage of required medical staff for a long time, locals told the FE.
Meanwhile, an official at the Upazila Family Planning Office said each of the union-level health and family welfare centres is entitled to have one sub-assistant community medical officer, one pharmacist, one family welfare visitor, one nurse and one office assistant.
But the three centres are not able to provide any service at all as they have none to serve while a female visitor from the Pagla union family welfare centre manages to see the Patharia centre on Sundays only.
Some of the service seekers of Patharia union said almost a hundred people used to receive medicare service every day at their center, when it had been functional long time ago.
But the union level facility remains almost shut on the weekdays due to absence of staff members, depriving the poor service seekers from remote villages, they added.
Now the service seekers have to go to the upazila headquarters or the district town even for minor health issues.
They demanded that immediate steps be taken to make the government-run health and family welfare centres functional again.
Ataur Rahman, a resident of Patharia village, said under the present circumstances, the poor people have no alternative but to go to the district town to seek basic medical assistance at higher costs. Normally, they used to get basic services locally, he added.

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