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Dhaka Dental College Hospital

Bureaucratic red tape holds back emergency services

Akram Hosen
Dhaka Dental College Hospital has not been able to start an emergency unit even after two years of its inception in 2011 due to bureaucratic tangles, depriving patients with critical needs of timely treatment.
Being the largest hospital specialising in dentistry and facial surgery in the country, hospitals from across the country refer people with critical needs to this hospital for advanced treatment.
But many arriving patients have to wait for hours, sometimes a whole night, before they receive any treatment, let alone see any specialists.
At present, the hospital receives patients
through its outdoor service that remains open from 8:00am to 2:30pm. People who cannot come within this period have no choice but to wait outside.
"I waited an entire night at the hospital veranda with my injured son. We were totally unattended the whole time," said one woman whose 17-year-old son recently needed immediate surgery in his jaw for injuries from a road accident in Kishoreganj.
The hospital administration said they cannot start providing the emergency service because the hospital does not have the required staff.
"We had written to the authorities right after the hospital opened," said top administrative
FROM PAGE 5 officials on condition of anonymity.
"But the files only moved from one desk to another in the ministries of health and public administration for the last two years," they said.
For creation of any post, the hospital administration has to write to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) first.
The DGHS then sends the files to the health ministry from where it goes to the public administration and then to the finance ministry and finally to a committee of secretaries for approval, said a joint secretary of the health ministry.
Within these offices the files have to cross a number of tiers, where the files are verified and provided
suggestions and approvals.
The concerned file that is currently at the public administration ministry passed four bureaucratic tiers at the health ministry alone, taking up around one year.
Akhtari Mamtaj, a deputy secretary' at the public administration ministry, said the ministry officials would visit the hospital now and then send the file to the finance ministry for approval.
"The process will continue for some more months," said a public administration ministry official.
The hospital sources said they usually get about 50 to 80 patients needing emergency response every day.
While these patients are deprived of the timely treatment, the documents to solve the issue remain tied in red tape.