Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital doubling its capacity with KS Relief support to care Rohingyas

The Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KS Relief) will help to double the capacity of the Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital, only referral centre of the area, to cope with the number of patients from among the Rohingya refugees.

An estimated 1 million Rohingya and 300,000 people from host community need assistance in the area of Cox’s Bazar and rely on a network of local health facilities coordinated by the government of Bangladesh and the WHO.

All patients with more serious conditions are referred to and treated at Sadar District Hospital - the only referral hospital in the area, the WHO said.

The hospital was designed and built to accommodate 250 in-patients. But, on any given day there are between 400 and 600 in-patients and more are expected during the monsoon and cyclone season that begins shortly, the UN health agency said.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, WHO and the KS Relief have undertaken a joint improvement project to enhance health care services at the Sadar Hospital for Rohingyas and their host communities.

The joint project will be used to double the number of in-patient beds from 250 to 500, improve trauma and emergency obstetric care services, and out-patient care, the WHO said.

Funds will be used to help rehabilitate wards for men, women and children.

Additional doctors, nurses and cleaners will be hired to help improve the hospital services and training will be conducted in infection prevention and in treating diseases such as diarrhoea.

KS Relief Supervisor General Dr Abdullah Al Rabeeah visited the joint project on April 12 and saw first-hand the services the hospital provides to the refugees who took shelter fleeing ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Myanmar.

“KS Relief is pleased to support our long-standing partners WHO to increase access to health care and ensure the Sadar Hospital is better able to treat the thousands of patients coming here it each year both from the Rohingya and host community,” the Supervisor General was quoted as saying in a statement.

Acting WHO representative in Bangladesh Dr Bardan Jung Rana said that over the next year, “the much-needed funds from KS Relief will help upgrade Sadar District Hospital to cope with the increased demand for emergency obstetric care, trauma services and diarrheal disease management, for both in-patient and out-patient services.”

“We look forward to the continued generous support of KS Relief for this vulnerable population to help save lives,” he said in the statement.