Shortage of nurses hits medicare hard:Daily Sun

  There has been an acute shortage of nurses, the caregivers of patients at public hospitals, hampering overall medical activities and causing untold sufferings to treatment seekers. To assuage the sufferings, the government is going to recruit some 10,000 nurses for public hospitals as treatment at state-owned infirmaries gets hampered due to an acute shortage of nurses, officials concerned said.
This would be the highest recruitment at a time in any service sector after the country’s post-liberation era to ensure healthcare services of poor patients. Many rural healthcare centres have posts of physicians, but there are no nurses to maintain treatment protocol for patients properly as per doctors’ advice. But public-health experts expressed satisfaction over the government’s move to recruit more nurses to help poor patients at public hospitals. Noted physician Dr Muhammad Abdus Sabur said doctors usually see patients and make prescriptions for them for their recovery from illnesses, but nurses perform the rest of job on behalf of physicians. “Nurses are the linchpin of the health service. Their role is crucially important for a patient’s recovery from ailment,” he mentioned. Possible recruitment of nurses has created a new hope among rural and remote people as they will get both doctors and nurses beside them during emergency. “Geriatrics will be highly benefited if doctors and nurses stay in rural health care centres. Patients will be able to consult doctors and maintain proper treatment protocol as per their advice,” Dr Sabur said. A senior clinician of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University said the national health policy focuses on ensuring proper medical services of the poor. “Through recruitment of nurses, the poor section of society will be benefited to a great extent as nurses play a major role in ensuring treatment properly.” Failing to receive medical services from public healthcare centres for lack of doctors and nurses, patients often fall into the wrong hands of rural quacks or nurses at public hospitals, he observed. “The move to recruit thousands of nurses by the government is very laudable for taking health services to people’s doorsteps. The prime minister is doing it to ensure health care for the poor and helpless.” As per the PM’s directives, Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammad Nasim recently said, steps will be taken to recruit 10,000 nurses to ensure health care services for poor and general citizens. A remarkable progress has been made in the health sector during the tenure of the Hasina administration, he noted. “Our prime minister has got an invitation from the United Nations to deliver her speech in the UN General Assembly for an outstanding success in the country’s health sector.” Such an instance has now become a role model for other least-developed countries, Nasim asserted.