Staff Reporter:
More than two and half months after the detection of the first Covid-19 case in Bangladesh, the government has permitted 13 private hospitals and diagnostic centres in three districts to conduct tests.
A press release was issued by Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), signed by the acting director general Prof Nasima Sultana on Tuesday afternoon.
The institutions are in Dhaka (11), Chittagong (1), and Bogura (1).
They are: Evercare Hospital, Square Hospital, Praava Health, Ibn Sina Medical College Hospital, United Hospital, Biomed Diagnostics, DMFR Molecular Lab and Diagnostics, LabAid Hospital, and Care Medical College, Bangladesh Institute of Health Science General Hospital in Dhaka.
Outside the city, Enam Medical College Hospital in Savar upazila. The other two institutions are TMSS Medical College and Rafatullah Community Hospital in Bogra and Chevron Clinical Laboratory in Chittagong.
DGHS sources said this is not a spontaneous decision. As part of the measure, from April 29, DGHS had permitted three hospitals – Evercare, Square and United – to collect and
test samples from their indoor patients only.
Finally to establish a better way to enrol patients, especially indoor patients at the non-permitted hospitals, the measure has been further extended, they added.
According to the press release, it would cost Tk,3500 to collect samples and perform tests for indoor and outdoor patients in the hospitals.
Extending the earlier facilities to other non-permitted private hospitals, it said they can now collect samples directly from patients.
It further said that hospitals who have been permitted to conduct tests have to take the samples from the non-permitted private hospitals and clinics for testing. The non-permitted hospitals may charge Tk500 for collecting samples from patients.
Among the hospitals, only Praava Health has started its operations and the rest would start after Eid.
DGHS has also allowed the private hospitals to collect samples from home and to this end, a person showing symptoms or those who came into contact with a Covid-19 positive patient and wants to perform a test, have to pay an additional charge of Tk1,000 (altotal Tk4,500) for the collection of samples from home and tests.
DGHS asked all the permitted hospitals and diagnostics to send all results of the conducted tests in an integrated form to the lab call centre and District Health Information System (DHIS), the information management centre of DGHS.
Sources from DGHS and CDC said the hospitals would not be provided with testing kits. They would have to arrange it on their own, maintaining the standard, or using the authorized companies allowed by the government.
However, there is a possibility of reevaluation of rates of sample collection and testing, sources said.
Experts said the initiative should have come much earlier, because at the time of the pandemic, it is needed to ensure treatment for both Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients at the same hospitals. And, no patient should be denied that. However, it has been largely observed that no patients, either Covid-19 or not, were being treated by the hospitals in recent times, experts said.
They said they are receiving a number of cases where many people, after coming to the health kiosks or booths, tried to bribe the health workers to collect their samples first despite noticing people waiting at the centres. These initiatives will send many such people to the private facilitates.
This initiative will allow the hospitals to take quick decisions and provide treatment after isolating the confirmed cases as early as possible, said Jahirul Karim, Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM), CDC.
It will also reduce pressure on government facilities, he added.
