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SALIMULLAH MEDICAL COLLEGE

Female students suffer in tattered dormitory

Scarcity of space not only affects the newcomers but the seniors as well. Low quality of food, unclean toilets and lack of proper security make it even worse for them.

SABRINA KARIM MURSHED
Living in dining room because of accommodation problem, low quality food and an inadequate number of unclean toilets -- these are only part of what the female students of Sir Salimullah Medical College have to bear with every day.
About 450 of the 750 students of the second largest medical college are females. Still, it has only one dormitory for them.
Accommodation problem peaks in the dormitory with new enrollment every year.
"The first-year students suffer most," said Tanima Ahmed, a hostel resident. "It may take two to three years for a student to get a seat."
And so, it is the dining and TV rooms where the freshers ultimately land up in.
"Since the dining room houses the students, we have to bring food to our room and eat. Sometimes we sit on the beds of the first-year students in the dining room and have it there," said Sahida Khatun, a fifth-year student.
The hostel for the females has two buildings including a new one built in 1993. The new building has 28 rooms while the old one has 36. Besides, there is a tin-shed single-storey structure with six rooms.
"It is all crammed. Row of beds fill the dining room," said a student living in the dining hall. "Sometimes it becomes suffocating. We cannot concentrate in study."
Scarcity of space not only affects the newcomers but the seniors as well. According to hostel rules, all interns are supposed to stay on a single floor.
"Our entire batch is now staying on the fifth floor. In each room, 14 of us stay," said an intern. The students said male interns have a separate hostel, but not the females.
Much as the bad accommodation, low quality food is another suffering the female students have to face. The food is badly cooked and insufficient.
"Would you believe that they cook egg, fish, chicken and beef all together," said Tahmina. "The look of the curry is nauseating."
The kitchen is full of dirt and cockroaches and the food is unhealthy.
"We often find worms in vegetables," said Shrabonti, another student. Rice is littered with brick chips.
To remain healthy, most residents do not eat at the dining hall and cook their own food. Some of them have refrigerators in their rooms and bring food from home, which they eat for days together.
"But those who can not afford this, the horrible food at
the dining hall is the only option," said Soumee.
The dormitory has only three bathrooms on each floor accommodating at least 42 students. But in reality, they have to do with one toilet since on each floor since two of the bathrooms are unusable for long. One bathroom on the fourth floor of the new dormitory does not have any door at all. The washroom floors are slippery with moss as hardly anyone cleans them.
"There are three cleaners, but they never do their job properly," said one of the students.
Water crisis has worsened the woes of the students. The lone water pump often remains out of order and the students have to bring water from outside.
Lax security makes life even more difficult for them. Incidents of theft are frequent. "Many of us have lost our mobile phones to thieves," said one of the students.
"We have two gatekeepers but they are not around most of the time," complained a senior student.
Sharfuzzaman, viceprincipal of the college, said the number of female students has increased by 60 percent in the last 24 months. "This is why we cannot offer them adequate accommodation," he said.
However, he added that another dormitory for female interns is on the way. "The plan was passed long time back, but we could not start construction because of fund crisis and fourth-class employees occupying the land designated for the hostel," he said. "We will begin the construction as soon as we get funds and the land."
About the low quality food, the vice-principal said the authorities only supply utensils and kitchen staff. "The students mange the kitchen themselves and we are not responsible for it," he said.