Poor suffer as DMCH slaps fee on visitors

Decision yet to get govt approval
The Dhaka Medical College Hospital authorities have introduced ticket system against money for the visitors’ entry from August 1, much to the sufferings of the poor patients and those attending to them.
Tk 20 has been fixed for visiting a free-bed patient, Tk 30 for a paying-bed patient and Tk 50 for a cabin patient.
A visitor’s pass is valid for seven days and the money is not refundable.
The new rule has yet to get approval from the government.
DMCH Director Brig Gen Bazle Quader said the health ministry has verbally approved a written proposal he submitted to that end recently.
Directorate General of Health Services Dr Shah Monir Hossain however said the ministry did not yet receive any such proposal.
Brig Gen Bazle Quader says the ticket system is necessary to control crowding of visitors.
But the reality is the numbers of nurses and ward boys in the hospital are very inadequate, and it means the patients must have relatives or friends as attendants to see to their needs.
In DMCH, there are 600 nurses for three shifts; so 200 nurses should be on duty in a single shift. But around 100 remain on leave every day, cutting further the already stretched manpower.
Besides, nurses and ward boys do not take proper care of the patients and ask for money to serve them.
Several patients and their attendants alleged that the new system is causing sufferings to them.
The ticket price is much higher compared to the admission fee of Tk 11 and the treatment fee of Tk 5.50, visitors said.
Since most of the patients coming to this state-run hospital are very poor, it is difficult for them to meet the expenses.
Ishhaq Miah, a day labourer, told The Daily Star, “The security guards harassed me for ticket money when I brought a female passer-by wounded in a road accident in Keraniganj to the hospital Tuesday.”
If the rule is made mandatory, no one would come forward to help people in need, he observed.
Meanwhile, Brig Gen Bazle Quader beat up an attendant named Ramzan for entering the hospital without ticket on Tuesday night.
Ramzan, 20, was looking for blood for his father who was in operating theatre.
The other attendants at the hospital protested at the incident.
Mitford Hospital, another government-run medical establishment, has a system where ticket money is refunded to the attendants once their patients are ready to leave the hospital.
The registers kept at the emergency, outdoor, and administrative units showed that highest 250 to 300 tickets were sold on a day.
DMCH sources said every day more than 2,000 patients stay in the hospital for treatment, and at least 4,000 people visit them.
The ticket system is going to open up a new area of corruption by the hospital employees, sources said.

Courtesy of The Daily Star