Power cuts leave Barishal hospitals struggling

Frequent power cuts are leaving patients at two major hospitals in Barishal struggling through heat, overcrowding and interrupted treatment. At Barishal General Hospital and Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital, inadequate generators, fuel shortages and limited electrical connections are disrupting essential services.

At Barishal General Hospital, the effects were particularly clear in the diarrhoea ward. With the outdoor temperature at 32 degrees Celsius, patients used hand fans after electricity went out around 11am and stayed off for more than an hour. Patient Anwar Hossain said outages occurred every one or two hours.

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This situation has been going on for the past one and a half months. We have submitted a demand for an IPS, but nothing has been done yet.

Nurse Tumpa Rani said staff sometimes used mobile phone lights to treat patients at night. “This situation has been going on for the past one and a half months. We have submitted a demand for an IPS, but nothing has been done yet,” she said. The hospital has about 450 inpatients and serves roughly 750 outpatients daily. Its resident medical officer, Dr Moloy Krishna Baral, said the facility has only one electricity line, while its sole generator has been unusable since the pandemic.

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There are three generators for emergencies, two with 250 kilowatts each and another with 175 kilowatts of capacity. When the power goes out, two generators run while one remains on standby. However, the generators do not provide backup to the new medicine building, ICU and some other areas.

Conditions were similar at the 1,000-bed Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital, where patients and attendants crowded wards, corridors and staircases. Mahabul Alam, whose three-year-old child was admitted with breathing difficulties, said no bed was available, leaving the child to receive treatment on a staircase in the heat. Some families brought stand fans, while others used palm-leaf hand fans.

The coronary care unit was treating 22 critically ill patients. Its generator could not power air conditioners or large medical equipment, said Dr Afzal. Public Works Department engineer Md Rakib Hossain said the hospital needs about one megawatt of electricity and has three emergency generators, but they do not cover the new medicine building, ICU and some other areas. He said the generators require at least 150 litres of fuel daily, without a separate fuel allocation.

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At least 150 litres of fuel is needed to run the generators daily. But we do not have a separate allocation for fuel.