On the seventh floor of the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) cabin building, Imran Hossain was playing games on his mobile phone with his back against the wall. A few other young men are sitting around him. Relatives of patients admitted to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) are supposed to stay at the site. They are not relatives of patients. Yet they sit like this every day from 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Regular observation in front of the ICU cabin of the hospital for about a week showed that 15-20 youths like Imran sit in this position in front of the ICU every day. Their job is to look after ICU patients and their relatives at different pharmacies outside the hospital and wait for new patients. They mainly sell medicines at higher prices to ICU patients or their relatives at outside pharmacies. Their job is also to build friendships with the relatives of new patients to sell medicines. The nurses and staff of the hospital do not go too far. They also collect money from patients’s relatives in the name of Bakshish. This is increasing the cost of treatment in the ICU of the hospital.
There are 23 pharmacies on the ground floor of the Aziz Cooperative Medicine Market. One or two employees of most of these pharmacies are regularly doing ‘duty’ on the ICU floor of the cabin building of the hospital. Imran Hossain, an employee of Aziz Cooperative Medicine and Medical Equipment Market’s shop, Abhi Pharmacy, said, “We actually serve the patients.” They never have to run to the pharmacy for medicine. We deliver all medicines regularly and on time. Do not keep the price of medicine too high.
However, no truth was found in his claim. I have checked the prices at different pharmacies on the market with a list of some medicines from a patient’s relative. But none of the owner-employees of these pharmacies wanted to tell the price.
There are also complaints about Ansar members working in front of the ICU. Although 1 hour is fixed every afternoon to see the patient in the ICU, if you pay 100 taka to Ansar members, you can visit the patient whenever you want. In this way, the infection of patients in the ICU is increasing.
Meanwhile, the relatives of the patients in the ICU complain that the nurses have to pay money to attend to the patients every day. A diaper change or a body wipe, but you have to pay. The most complaints are against a nurse named Nazma Begum. Without taking 500 taka in advance every day, she does not do any work for the patient.
When asked to contact nurse Nazma Begum on the telephone to know the truth of the complaint, she offered to speak face-to-face. At one point, she threatened to watch the reporter if he spoke about the allegations.
To find out about the overall issue, Vice-Chancellor of BSMMU Md. Sharfuddin Ahmed said, “We will investigate the complaints. If the allegations are found to be true, we will definitely take appropriate action against the accused.”
