Dhaka Medical College Hospital revives stalled project

Dhaka: Dhaka Medical College Hospital has revived a stalled project to expand its capacity to 2,300 beds from existing 1700 beds.

The extension and modernisation work involving over Tk 56 crore will begin by the yearend, the hospital authorities said.

Public Works Department will implement the scheme.

Acute accommodation crisis is one the major problems that plaque the country’s largest public hospital, which handles three times more patients than its capacity.

Shortage of physicians, nurses, medicine and modern healthcare facilities also lead to low quality services, patients often complain.

The health and family welfare ministry took up the extension and modernisation scheme in 2001 to improve the standards of services in the hospital, sources said.

Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina laid the foundation stone of the DMCH annexe on August 18 in 2001, but the project, which was supposed to be completed by 2005, was shelved due to political changeover and bureaucratic triangles.

The primary works of the scheme have been completed and a tender will soon be invited in newspapers for construction of a 10-storey building as planned under the scheme. The layout of the building has already been finalised, DMCH officials said.

The new building will house endocrinology, endoscopies, haemodialysis and kidney transplantation department and wards, operation theatres, VIP and general cabins.

Director of the hospital, Abdus Shahid Khan told New Age on Wednesday that the project would include installation of 600 beds and new equipment for 21 departments to provide better health services and educate the health professionals. ‘On completion of the scheme, the present problems in the hospital will be over,’ he said.

‘The number of patients at the hospital is several times higher than other hospitals, but the limitations in the hospital sometime deprive the patients of proper treatment,’ he added.

DMCH, being the country’s best referral hospital, has to handle patients referred by physicians from across the country for its emergency treatment.

Principal of the college and professors of all departments have been working to revise the project, the director said.

The building will be constructed on five acres of land on the west side of the hospital.

Hospital sources said on an average about 250 patients are admitted to the hospital everyday, and about 3,000 patients visit the outdoor and emergency departments. The hospital has over 2,000 resident patients.

The shortage of beds is acute in wards like general and gynaecology.

‘Bed crisis in the gynaecology ward is so acute that two patients have to share a single bed. Instances are also there that two mothers with newborns occupy the same bed,’ said a nurse.