OFTEN mountain produces mouse, so goes the saying.

Hardly any one would believe it until a visit to a point just 15-kilometre north of metropolitan Dhaka into Uttara Model Town. There stands a seven-storied mansion with two huge bill boards proudly inviting the sick and indisposed to come in. Doctors write prescription and nurses hand out few tablets for succor to the patients in lieu of taka five only, a sheer disbelief in to-day's cost for treatment! It's a sevendoctor one shift outdoor outlet styled as Bangladesh-Kuwait Friendship Hospital on Isa Khan Road at Sector 6 in Uttara. Two big marble plaques in English and Bengali remind the patients that the facility was opened for them by no other person than the then Prime Minister in the person of Sheikh Hasina on 10 June 2001.But still no equipment or indoor wards highlight the unique feature of the general hospital. Even a cynic will

find it difficult to believe that except for the front area all the doors and the seven floors are under lock and key for almost half a decade. The Public Works Department [PWD] is the custodian of the hospital but the Ministry of Health runs the outdoor clinic with deputation of seven doctors, two nurses and few staff.

The miracle mansion was the brainchild of a group of Kuwaiti philanthropists who thought of extending medical care free of cost to a segment of underprivileged people of Bangladesh. The Kuwaiti benevolent group provided such services to a number of countries in Africa and Asia. The Kuwaiti Ambassador and the Kuwait Joint Relief Committee [KJRC], a nongovernment philanthropic organisa-

tion, were allocated two million dollars in 1992 to build a hospital. After two years' errand the Ambassador could get around the relevant Bangladesh government departments to commence the project on 4 December in 1993. The Kuwaiti Minister for Religious and Waqf came all the way to lay the foundation.

A very low profile construction company with interest in brickfields awarded contact to execute the project under the behest and supervision of PWD. After a number of setbacks and inordinate delay the seven storied two-hundred-bed hospital complex came into being in 1996 far behind the schedule. The Kuwait Joint Relief Committee and the Kuwaiti Embassy encountered

another unexpected set of problems after completion of the complex: [a] the construction company came up with court case for more money than the contractual amount and [b] who would own the hospital -- PWD or Ministry of Health?

About another two years passed by. The orphan hospital ultimately could get a foster father on 15 March 1999 in the PWD who formally adopted the 'two million dollar baby' in presence of the then Foreign Minister Abdus Samad Azad, Health Minister [late] Salauddin Yusuf, and Works Minister Engr. Mosharaf Hossain. Half a dozen the then Members of Parliament and Arab and Muslim Ambassadors in Dhaka graced the auspicious handing over ceremony. Fortune, however, reversed for the

worse! The foster father without previous experience of 'child rearing' did not know what to do with the two million dollar baby. Another two years elapsed in hunt for an 'orphanage in the private sector'. Monsoon rain provided elixir to the luxuriant growth of weeds and creepers dwarfing the two huge signboards, ever-closed iron gates and the entrance of the hospital complex. The existence of the hospital almost went off the memory lane of the estimated one million inhabitants of Uttara Model Town and the adjoining areas. This writer brought the neglected-baby under focus through a write-up in The Daily Star on 26 February 2001. A four-year gathering dust was removed, grazing cattle herd relocated, vegetation trimmed and gates were formally opened by the then Prime Minister on 10 June 2001. In the din and bustle of much publicised general elections which was announced to be held in July 2001[actually held on 1st October], the Kuwaiti Ambassador and the executive agency of the hospital, KJRC were forgotten to be invited at the formal opening. Ambassador and the KJRC staff in utter disbelief saw the event on television in the evening and read details in the newspapers next morning. The sick

and the ailing poured in for treatment but met with disappointment to find little beyond two engraved marble plaques on the wall.

In a country where it is considered luxury for the poor patients to get space even on the floors, corridors and precinct of public hospitals, Kuwaitis were shocked to watch the pillow passing game of our government departments with the hospital which they so generously donated half a decade ago for the poorest section of the community. Kuwaiti authorities were also learnt to have decided at one stage to equip the hospital, run it with Bangladeshi doctors, technicians, nurses and other supporting staff on non-profit basis as soon as Bangladesh authorities made a Waqf of the complex in the name of the project. It was also learnt that the shipment was ready to take off from Kuwait at the nod of the Dhaka authorities. The philanthropists, however, were not favoured with any response either till today.

There were sea-saw events that

literally shook the world since the last quarter of 2001. A landslide victory had changed the government in Bangladesh with significant fall-outs on many aspects of life and society, but apparently no ramification on the Bangladesh-Kuwait hospital. The government authorities over the last seven years floated tenders/re-tenders a number of times to hand over the hospital in private sector. Those 'on duty' saw a good number of foreign and local teams visiting to submit bid and negotiate with the government. But it's a bad luck for the poor patients that the chemistry has not yet striked between the stakeholders. In the meanwhile, as many as four Kuwaiti Ambassadors came and gone, all but cried in the wilderness of corridors of power to 'bring the full grown baby out of theincubator'.

In the context of Bangladesh-Kuwait bilateral relations, the friendship Hospital is a nagging sevenyear-old irritant. Such events have spill-over effects to erode credibility. Let a courageous step stop the mountain from producing more mouse.

Former Ambassador M. Shafiullah was DirectorGeneral for Middle-East in the Foreign Office, 1993-95, and extended modest assistance to the then Kuwaiti Ambassador to launch the hospital project.