Pabna: Services at Pabna Mental Hospital, the country’s biggest infrastructure for treatment of the insane, are in a shambles for multifarious problems while World Mental Health Day is being observed today amid robust discussions and colourful rallies highlighting significance of the day.

Inadequate number of staff, including doctors, nurses, officers and employees, flimsy infrastructures and poor logistics are the main impediments to providing modern treatment here.  

The hospital is striving to cope with the increasing number of patients with its rundown buildings having insufficient accommodation capacity.

Only four medical officers are now giving treatment at the 500-bed hospital.

Efforts are made to ease the crisis of medical services here with some assistant professors of Pabna Medical College giving them additional responsibilities.  

Although there are 472 sanctioned posts of doctors, nurses and other officials at the specialised hospital, currently a total of 336 staff are struggling to provide treatment here for the patients from across the country.  

The very startling fact is that there is no sanctioned post of emergency medical officer.  

Two posts of senior consultant, one of clinical psychiatrist, one of residential medical officer, seven of clinical assistants, five of medical officers, two of assistant registrars, 70 of nurses and 125 of class II officer and class III and IV employees have remained vacant for a long time.  

As a result, a large number of patients coming to the hospital daily with various problems fail to get treatment as per their requirement.  

Apart, there is no dormitory for the nurses, nor any vehicle for the director of the hospital.  

During a recent visit, this correspondent found that the residential building for the director which has become unfit for living is now being used as the dormitory of the students of Pabna Medical College.

On the other hand, cleaning works of the hospital are being done with 25 people hired on a contract basis as there is no regular staff for the job.  

The washing plant, which was set up for cleaning clothes and bed sheets of the patients, sometimes lies out of order, creating indefinable problems for the patients.  

While contacted, Dr Tonmoy Biswas, director of the hospital, said lack of sincerity among the employees of the hospital is the main reason behind the poor condition of the hospital.  

Some 22 patients, who have come round recently, cannot go to their houses for wrong addresses, Tonmoy added.  

However, Tonmoy said some plans have been taken, including establishing a mental research institute and a 10-storey hospital building with 2,000 beds, to turn the hospital into a modern one.  

The hospital was established in 1957 at Shitolai House in Pabna town with 60 beds and later shifted to Hemaetpur, some five kilometers away from the town, in 1960.  

Currently, there are 150 paying beds and 350 non-paying beds and 18 wards, including those for drug addicts, at the hospital.