Insufficient number of beds is causing tremendous sufferings to patients at the country’s oldest hospital, Sir Salimullah Medical College and Mitford Hospital, as its extension plan for more 500 beds is hanging on for the last three years.
“The 900 beds hospital is not sufficient to facilitate huge numbers of people of the old Dhaka. In this context, the government planned to extend the hospital creating more 500 beds three years ago. But the plan is yet to be implemented,” Brigadier General Brian Bankim Halder, Director of Sir Salimullah Medical College and Mitford Hospital, told The New Nation.
He said there are tremendous pressures due to huge numbers of patients in the hospital. To reduce such pressure, the government had planned to extent accommodation facilities.
The hospital established in May 1, 1858 is the only reliable medical institute for the vast old city areas so far.
Local people also expressed disappointment because of the limited medical facilities of the hospital.
The Health Minister had assured the hospital authorities different times in the past about the extension of the hospital but it is yet to be implemented.
The locals said huge numbers of
people from old part of Dhaka are being deprived of inadequate medical facilities for the least accommodation capability of the hospital.
“We are facing crisis of least accommodation facility at Mitford Hospital. The long-awaited extension plan of the hospital is yet to be implemented. It has created frustrations among the people of old Dhaka,” said Jahid Awlad, a businessman of nearby Chawkbazar.
Sources said, a huge number of patients from Lalbagh, Kamrangirchar, Kotwali, Bangshal, Keraniganj and adjacent areas are depending on this hospital for medical treatment.
Doctors of the hospital said, only the 500 new beds would not be sufficient to give adequate medical services for such a huge number of treatment seekers, but it will be helpful for the hospital authorities to accommodate more patients.
On the spot visit it was found that many patients were taking place in passages of different floors of the hospital.
Many of the patients and their attendants said, they have no other alternative. That is why they are compelled to take seat in a passage outside of wards and cabins.
The director of the hospital said that they have proposed to build a new high-rise building for the planned extension of the 500 beds in the place of an old building of the hospital called Bank Bhaban and the adjacent open space.
He said that Health Minister Mohammad Nasim, during his to the hospital in the last week of July, assured him that the extension plan of the hospital would be placed soon in the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) for its early implementation.
Brian Banik Halder also said the government knows that the people of old Dhaka have difficulties to go outside hospitals for emergency needs because of the narrow roads in these areas.
So, we are hopefully that the ECNEC will pass the proposal soon, added the hospital director.
