Md Joynal Abedin Khan :
A mobile court on Wednesday fined United Hospital Limited Tk 20 lakh for keeping date expired medicines and sub-standard machineries as well as providing low quality based test reports to patients in the hospital.
The court also gave ultimatum to the managements for 15 days for cancelling of universal quality standard ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certificate if they fail to remove expired medicines and scientific equipments from the hospital.
The court, led by Sarwar Alam, Executive Magistrate associated with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), conducted the drive at the hospital in the afternoon.
Officials of the Directorate General of Health Services and Directorate General of Drug Administration helped the mobile court to verify the irregularities including medical test reports and sub-standard equipments in the hospital.
“We are conducting the drive to check machinery of the hospital and to find out if the authorities are selling substandard or expired medicines,” Sarwar Sarwar Alam told The New Nation on Wednesday evening.
The court found expired chemical reagents in the lab and selling substandard medicines during drive, magistrate said.
The expired reagents (chemical for diagnosis) is the main cause of wrong test reports, he said.
Patents might be facing unbearable situation using unauthorized medicines and medical equipments, according to him.
The chemicals quality of the Micro-Biology Laboratory, Histo-Pathology and Bio-Chemistry Laboratory, were also in horrible condition, he added.
The date of a sample of Sodium Hydro-Oxide (NaoH) which was colleted from a pathological laboratory, expired on August 31, 2016, he mentioned.
The prepared test reports of the patients were wrong as the hospital authorities used 50 per cent expired reagents for test to diagnosis the diseases, the magistrate claimed.
The seven-day surgical spinning also expired in 2013 that is invariably the key cause for infection of patients, he said.
Contacted the spokesman of the hospital, refrained from making any comment over the drive of the mobile court.
Earlier on 11 January, 2018, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Deputy Director Md Mahbubul Alam filed a case against the hospital for alleged evasion of Tk. 21 crore tax to the former Dhaka City Corporation.
According to the First Information Record (FIR), a six member investigation team formed by ACC found the hospital did not pay a net tax of over Tk. 21 crore since its inception until December 31, 2011.
The Commission approved charges against Managing Director of United Hospital Faridur Rahman Khan, and a former Dhaka City Corporation Commissioner and a member of Assessment Review Board (ARB) of Dhaka City Corporation Rahima Begum for illegal facilitation of tax in favour of the Hospital.
