Dhaka: Absence of proper planning and coordination in the government's coronavirus response has resulted in a disastrous situation, said a study by the Transparency International Bangladesh.

The government had three months in the beginning of this year to make adequate preparations, but failed to do that, said the study based on data from 47 hospitals in 38 districts, interviews with officials, and newspaper reports.

TIB researchers collected data between April 15 and June 14.

About 44 percent of the hospitals only started making preparations when community transmission had already begun while the government claimed that all preparations were taken even in upazilas.

Besides, the patients' demands at 21 percent hospitals were not estimated in advance.

Only 22 percent of the healthcare staffers were trained on treating Covid-19 patients and 57 percent of hospitals were found capable of doing as many tests as needed. And people got test results between one and eight days.

The 60 Covid-19 testing labs have been testing 13,600 samples every day for 14 days even though the facilities are capable of testing 24,000 samples. The full potential of the labs were not being utilised due to a shortage of skilled employees.

Improper sample collection and shortage of skilled personnel were resulting in almost 30 percent false-negative results, it said.

The pandemic has laid bare the weaknesses in the health sector, lack of planning over a long time and absence of good governance, it added.

Dr Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of TIB, said, "This crisis in the health sector has negatively impacted socio-economic sectors."

The government claimed that there are 399 ICUs for treating Covid-19 patients across the country, but the study found less than 140 functional ones.

The government also claimed that there were 500 ventilators for Covid-19 patients, but the study found only 190.

Treatment of general patients was being disrupted in 53 percent of the hospitals while treatment stumbled due to substandard protective equipment in 71 percent.

No doctor in 25 percent of the hospitals and no nurse in 34 percent of the hospitals got PPE.

Medical waste from Covid-19 units were dumped in the open by 30 percent of the hospitals.

The report highlighted that the Disaster Management Act, 2012 and the Communicable Disease (Prevention, Control and Elimination) Act, 2018 were not properly followed.

"As the Disaster Management Act, 2012 and the Standing Orders for Disaster (SOD) were not used, the opportunity of utilising different institutional set up, ministries and departments could not be used; rather only a few committees at district and upazila levels were instructed to take action," it said.

It also observed that information of all the deaths from the coronavirus was not available, because information of people who did not test, or did not report the death to the authorities were not included in the official data.

Dr Iftekharuzzaman said, "There has been a tendency to make bureaucratic decisions by ignoring specific opinions in all cases, including lockdowns.

"Due to lack of widespread social participation and proper information dissemination, the government failed to create public awareness which made the lockdown ineffective."

According to the study, no preparation was taken in distribution of relief goods in 20 percent of the 43 districts whereas the list of beneficiaries were not updated in 22 percent districts.

He also said that the tendency to cover up irregularities, corruption and mismanagement through restrictions on disclosure of information encouraged corruption in various ways.

The study found that only five lakh tests were done against 1.1 crore phone calls in the hotline numbers as of June 14.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The TIB made a 15-point recommendation, including arranging adequate tests, reconsidering the decision to revoke the lockdown, coordinating different ministries and government departments, increasing the budget for the health sector by five percent, and ensuring accountability and exemplary punishment against corruption, and triage management in hospitals.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak, a total of 37 journalists have been sued in 67 cases under the Digital Security Act.

"If the government wants to tackle this crisis, the right to get and publish accurate information must not diminish," Dr Iftekharuzzaman said.

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