Rigorous compliance checks in hospitals imperative

The tragedy on the day before the Eid-ul Azha that struck the parents whose six newborns died in the post-operative room of a private hospital in Dhaka is a rude awakening for us all, as hospitals, too, may not be a safe place for patients of all ages, let alone newborns. This is not to say that all our hospitals, private or state-owned, are totally unsafe. Not in the least. For they are still the last hope for patients in critical condition and in need of special medical care. So, there is no point pointing the finger at hospitals in general or, in this case, a particular hospital, for serious lapses that led to the avoidable deaths of six newborns all at a time. In fact, this particular tragedy should be a lesson for the hospital where those infants died as well as others where similar tragedies might strike unless they took necessary precautions to avoid a repetition of similar accidents. Having said that, there is, however, no question that those responsible for keeping the newborns in a post-operative room that was found to be, as reported, a confined and suffocating space with poor ventilation, are made accountable. However, it would be unwise to be judgmental at this point since an official probe is underway to find out what went wrong at the hospital's post-operative ward. The probe committee formed over the tragic incident is reportedly going to submit its full report tomorrow (June 3).

Whatever happened at the post-operative room, the tragic incident highlights serious critical gaps in the neonatal care infrastructure of our healthcare facilities, not to mention the institutional oversight. To avoid the kind of accident we are faced with, post-operative and maternal care recovery rooms, especially those housing fragile newborns, must have robust and reliable ventilation systems. Such recovery rooms should never be tightly enclosed spaces dependent only on air conditioning. As could be learnt, the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the hospital in question is located on the fifth floor while the post-operative ward is on the first floor. Evidently, this can cause delay in transfer of the infants in critical condition from the post-operative ward to the NICU and that can be fatal for the patients in question.  So, the hospital wards should be designed in such a way that it can facilitate immediate emergency transfer. Here comes the responsibility of the hospital management who must constantly evaluate the safety and standard of the wards. There should also be rigorous and periodic hospital compliance checks so that no unregulated hazard might compromise the hospital's safety standard. There should also be systemic transparency and accountability so there is no backtracking on any internal investigation carried out regarding any lapse or any failure to inform about risk factors.  In that case, public trust in the hospital might erode. That would prevent the required reforms in the healthcare system.    

It would be worthwhile to note at this point that a Supreme Court lawyer has meanwhile served a legal notice on the government demanding formation of an independent judicial inquiry commission to investigate the tragedy.  The said legal notice also called for launching nationwide mobile court drives to assess, what it said, the quality of emergency medical services and curb irregularities in the private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres. These are no doubt positive moves by concerned citizens towards ridding the healthcare sector of its irregularities so it might become more humane and service-oriented. The deaths of newborns at the private hospital in question is just the tip of the iceberg. To be frank, the accidents in hospitals that can make the headlines often jolt the public conscience. But the situation soon becomes normal. We have as though become   passive onlookers of the wrongs and the injustices being done to the powerless. This is begetting the culture of impunity.

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