About 300 staff of pharmaceutical companies were found nuzzling in and around the outpatient departments at DMCH although they were not officially allowed there, as per the report. They were present at almost every chamber of doctors. The patients alleged that the doctors gave priority to the pharmaceutical company staff instead of attending patients. Allegations have it that medical representatives (MR) often bribe doctors in cash and kind to prescribe their medicines.
Pharmaceutical company people were seen to enter the chambers keeping patients waiting in long queues. Staff at DMCH were also found making money, manipulating the serial of patients.
Anyone can get early entry if a staff can be paid Tk 50-100, said a patient who managed to get the deal at the Medical College Hospital. The medicines at the Medical College outpatient departments are supposed to be given to patients without any charge, officials said. The patients alleged that hardly got all the medicines they were prescribed.
The patients, mostly the poor, get substandard services at the outpatient departments of the two premier tertiary hospitals in the country. Medical Representatives surround the patients, stand while patients talk to the doctors about their sensitive problems which should be confidential and privileged information accessible to the doctors ears alone, don’t allow the patients to sit down which is difficult for patients who have locomotion problems, and even prescribe the mostly economically disadvantaged patients to visit private clinics disregarding their lack of economic resources and their need to get healthcare at an affordable cost. Even the guards can be bribed to allow anyone to enter doctors’ chambers, as reported by a local daily. Meanwhile the poor get fewer medicines than prescribed as the medicine stores give only a fraction of the medicines needed but record the total amounts, saying that they don’t have sufficient stock to give all medicines.
These range of malpractices at the country’s top hospitals can’t grow unchallenged. The hospital authorities must be more vigilant to curb corruption at all levels. They have the power to check the medical representatives as they purchase vast amounts of medicine everyday. The government subsidises the education of most of the doctors who work in these public hospitals. The common man should have the privilege of getting a fair and comprehensive treatment as it is public funds which have subsidized the education of the doctors. This can’t be too much to ask.
