Nursing staff crisis at CMCH remains despite joining of 323

A total of 323 more nursing staff are going to join Chattogram Medical College Hospital (CMCH) next Sunday, somewhat relieving the scarcity of nurses here, says Hospital Director, Brigadier General SM Humayun Kabir. 

However, nurses on duty at the hospital told The Business Standard that even if the shortage of nursing staff is slightly eased with the new appointments at the 1313-bed hospital, its nursing staff crisis is not quite completely over yet.

At least 40 more posts of nurses remain vacant even after 323 new nurses joined here, they added.

According to CMCH sources, there are 1,054 nurses working for the hospital, although there are 1,249 sanctioned nursing staff positions at the hospital.  Recently, 168 nurses were also transferred from here to different hospitals. 

Moreover, about 50 of the 1,054 nurses working for the hospital are on various types of leave, including maternity leave, making the crisis of nurses here, worse. This is affecting patients admitted to CMCH they said. 

However, hospital director SM Humayun Kabir thinks the 300+ new appointments will lessen the crisis of nurses to some extent as well as speed up medical services.  Moreover, increasing the number of nurses will increase their accountability in providing services.

He said the government has recently appointed more than 8,000 senior staff nurses and of them, 323 nurses have been posted to CMCH, who will join here on 12 December. 

Insafi Hanna, nursing superintendent at CMCH, said the posts of nursing staff should be increased as the scope of services at the hospital has expanded with the introduction of a one-stop emergency service and a Covid-19 vaccination centre.

CMCH officially has a total of 1313 beds in 44 wards for providing patients with medical services.  But 2,500-3,000 patients remain undergoing treatment there every day.  For this huge number of patients, there are more or less about 1,000 nurses at hand, daily.

They discharge their duties in three shifts in accordance with their duty roster. With this,  a maximum of 300-400 nurses are able to serve patients in a single shift at this huge hospital.

CMCH Nursing Superintendent Insafi Hanna says that according to standards set by the World Health Organisation, hospitals have to have one nursing staff for every four patients. But the CMCH has only 10/12 nurses for 150-250 patients in most of its wards.