Sandwip Patient Death Sparks Outrage Over Inoperable Sea Ambulances

A seventy-year-old patient named Osman Goni died yesterday on Monday at Guptachara Ghat in Sandwip, Chattogram, following severe treatment delays and the unavailability of a functional water ambulance. The incident has drawn widespread attention and highlighted long-standing infrastructural failures in emergency medical patient transfers from the island upazila to mainland hospitals.

According to verified reports, the government previously supplied two rescue water ambulances to Sandwip, but neither of them is currently used for patient transport. The first vessel, valued at 2.5 million taka, was provided by the Ministry of Health on 17 April 2008 for the 20-bed hospital. Due to a severe lack of a designated driver and necessary fuel, this particular boat has remained entirely inoperable and abandoned for 15 years.

The second water ambulance, named 'Rescue Eagle 1' with a valuation of 6.5 million taka, was provided by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief in 2015. However, this vessel was specifically constructed only for internal inland waterways and was never suitable for rough sea routes, rendering it useless for crossing the dangerous maritime channel between Sandwip and the mainland.

Rezaul Karim, a 46-year-old relative of the deceased, recounted the tragic moments at the terminal. He stated, 'Going to the ghat and after waiting for a long time, we could not arrange any boat. There was no sea ambulance either, otherwise perhaps my uncle would not have had to die at the ghat like this.' Other individuals present during the incident included Md. Ibrahim, Kulsuma Begum, 72-year-old Siraj Uddin, Md. Shahjahan, Zamirul Islam, and Abdul Kaiyum Talukdar.

Medical and administrative sources note that emergency referrals are a regular necessity, with health professionals advising that six to ten patients are typically recommended for urgent transfer to Chattogram Medical College Hospital every single week. Highlighting the ongoing operational challenges, Dr. M. Ashraf Siddiqui from the Sandwip Upazila Health Complex remarked, 'Even on Tuesday, we quickly [transferred] a heart attack patient to Chattogram...'

Broader national initiatives have previously attempted to address maritime health logistics, including six water ambulances funded by the World Bank and Dutch Health, alongside maritime support traditionally coordinated by the Bangladesh Coast Guard. Despite these institutional frameworks, the local community in Sandwip continues to face grave dangers due to the complete dysfunction of the designated local transport assets.