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Coaxing patients into treatment trap

Law enforcers detect 15 dishonest physicians, 24 clinics and labs

SHARIFUL ISLAM
A law-enforcement agency is making a list of unscrupulous physicians involved in luring patients from public hospitals at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar to private clinics and laboratories to make money.
About 24 private clinics and pathological labs have also been bracketed for being the lynchpin of such organised crime.
"We've so far detected about 15 such dishonest physicians and nearly 24 clinics and labs," confirmed a senior official in that agency, seeking anonymity.
Owners of the clinics and labs in collusion with brokers and certain amoral physicians, lab technicians and staff of Pangu (orthopaedic) hospital, Suhrawardy Hospital and National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) compel helpless patients to take treatment outside public hospitals at exorbitant prices.
Though government hospitals are equipped with pathological
facilities, some doctors send patients to get tests done in the labs of their choices. The physicians reportedly get commission, ranging from 40 per cent to 60 per cent of total costs from these medical outfits.
Investigators have already gathered enough evidence against the already bracketed doctors and owners of the clinics and labs. "We are still trying to find out if some others were involved in the nexus," said the official.
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Most of the private clinics and labs in question are located at Mirpur Road, Babar Road, Humayun Road and Ring Road and are within two kilometres sphere of the government hospitals at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
Ideally, private clinics should be located where government healthcare facilities are not available, but that is not the case here. Private clinics and labs have mushroomed in the area and are doing booming business.
Patients from rural areas are the easy prey of brokers. The Rapid Action Team (RAT) arrested 10 persons from Pangu hospital and the NICVD premises on May 14 on charge of alluring patients to the private clinics.
"A broker gets Tk 1,500 to Tk 2,000 from private clinic owners if he/she can hook a patient," an employee of a private clinic near Pangu hospital told The Daily Star.
"Like us, most of the clinics have their paid people at Pangu, NICVD and Suhrawardy hospitals to trap patients," he confided.
Momin Uddin, an officer at an insurance company, had a nightmarish experience when he went to Pangu hospital after being shot by some miscreants about a month back.
"I went to Pangu hospital with a
bullet in a leg. It was around 11 :30pm then. Two youths appeared from nowhere and literally forced me to get admitted to a clinic at Mirpur Road," said the 28-year-old.
An assistant professor at Pangu hospital conducted the operation at the clinic and charged Tk 11,500. Momin said he had to pay more than Tk 77,000 as hospital, doctor and others bills in less than a month's treatment there.
The clinic's service was far below ordinary, Momen said, adding, "I had to pay Tk 1,500 per day as cabin rent alone," he said.
The Daily Star recently found a day-labourer, Fazlu, waiting at a ward of Suhrawardy hospital for hernia operation.
"I got some blood and ultrasonogram tests done at a lab, just opposite to the Mirpur road. I know test facilities are available in this hospital. But a doctor and hospital staff virtually forced me to go for the tests at the clinic," said Fazlu, who came from Bhola for the treatment, when approached.
"A hospital staff suggested that the operation at the hospital is very risky and that I should go to a good private clinic he happens to know for operation," he said.
"I was about to take his advice but my uncle who lives in Dhaka talked me out of it."