19 hours Ago
It is quite perplexing that the prime public health facility in Bangladesh's port city does not have a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. According to a report by this daily , Chittagong Medical College Hospital's (CMCH) only MRI machine has been out of service for three years now, forcing patients to go to private facilities for the test. Thus, instead of paying Tk 3,000-5,000 for MRI scans at the CMCH, they are spending Tk 9,000-20,000 for the diagnosis at private facilities.
This is not the first time that inadequacy and unavailability of essential equipment have been reported at public hospitals. Often, the reason behind the unavailability is not a shortage of funds. Rather, the hospital authorities' mismanagement, inertia, and perhaps even a lack of compassion for general patients leave medical equipment without maintenance and timely repair.
Some machines even remain unused for years because of a lack of trained operators. In the case of the MRI machine at the CMCH, the hospital authorities' refusal to pay the supplier Tk 1 crore for a comprehensive maintenance contract after the expiry of the warranty period in 2020 resulted in patients paying higher prices for MRI scans elsewhere. Apparently, the CMCH authorities wanted to save Tk 35 lakh by offering the supplier Tk 65 lakh.
What happened instead was that patients bore the burden of their failure to negotiate a deal. If a minimum of 12 patients at the CMCH require MRI scans daily, then a minimum of Tk 12.5 crore has been spent by general patients, out of pocket, over the three years just to get MRI scans.
This raises the question: what public money did the CMCH save by not accepting the supplier's terms? While easier terms and even change of suppliers are indeed options that can be explored, did the authorities carry out a patient-centric cost-benefit analysis at any stage? Ironically, Tk 3.5 crore has now been allocated to repair the machine, with specialists from the supplier company as well as engineers from the National Electro-Medical Equipment Maintenance Workshop and Training Centre working for the last two months to repair the broken machine. The saga of CMCH's MRI machine shows how our healthcare system continues to fail patients as decisions are not made with their best interests in mind.
We urge the government to focus more on health sector reforms, initiating a comprehensive overhaul so that public healthcare becomes more accessible, efficient, and patient-friendly. It is quite perplexing that the prime public health facility in Bangladesh's port city does not have a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. According to a report by this daily , Chittagong Medical College Hospital's (CMCH) only MRI machine has been out of service for three years now, forcing patients to go to private facilities for the test.
Thus, instead of paying Tk 3,000-5,000 for MRI scans at the CMCH, they are spending Tk 9,000-20,000 for the diagnosis at private facilities. This is not the first time that inadequacy and unavailability of essential equipment have been reported at public hospitals. Often, the reason behind the unavailability is not a shortage of funds.
Rather, the hospital authorities' mismanagement, inertia, and perhaps even a lack of compassion for general patients leave medical equipment without maintenance and timely repair. Some machines even remain unused for years because of a lack of trained operators. In the case of the MRI machine at the CMCH, the hospital authorities' refusal to pay the supplier Tk 1 crore for a comprehensive maintenance contract after the expiry of the warranty period in 2020 resulted in patients paying higher prices for MRI scans elsewhere.
Apparently, the CMCH authorities wanted to save Tk 35 lakh by offering the supplier Tk 65 lakh. What happened instead was that patients bore the burden of their failure to negotiate a deal. If a minimum of 12 patients at the CMCH require MRI scans daily, then a minimum of Tk 12.
5 crore has been spent by general patients, out of pocket, over the three years just to get MRI scans. This raises the question: what public money did the CMCH save by not accepting the supplier's terms? While easier terms and even change of suppliers are indeed options that can be explored, did the authorities carry out a patient-centric cost-benefit analysis at any stage? Ironically, Tk 3.5 crore has now been allocated to repair the machine, with specialists from the supplier company as well as engineers from the National Electro-Medical Equipment Maintenance Workshop and Training Centre working for the last two months to repair the broken machine.
The saga of CMCH's MRI machine shows how our healthcare system continues to fail patients as decisions are not made with their best interests in mind. We urge the government to focus more on health sector reforms, initiating a comprehensive overhaul so that public healthcare becomes more accessible, efficient, and patient-friendly..
