Efforts Fall Short of Need

Abul Bashar went back home on Wednesday having waited for a heart surgery for two weeks at a public hospital in Dhaka. Exhausted from seeking out all the options, the 70-year-old and his family decided to give in to what fate has in store for them.

A patient of hypertension for more than a decade, he was diagnosed with heart block in April this year. Doctors at Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH), the only public hospital outside Dhaka that has the infrastructure and manpower to conduct cardiac surgeries, suggested implanting stents. A stent is a spring-like object placed to open up a blocked artery of the heart.

The attempt of stenting failed and he was referred to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) for a bypass surgery. Since construction work was ongoing at the NICVD, Bashar's wife Julekha Begum was told that an operation as critical as an open heart surgery would be highly risky for the dust all around.

What were the alternatives remaining then? Not many. And the cost goes higher and higher when patients have to move from a government hospital to an autonomous to a non-profit organisation to a private organisation.