TUHIN SHUBHRA ADHIKARY

The Super Specialised Hospital of the Bangladesh Medical University (BMU) is set to be run as a corporate entity, and its treatment costs will be higher than those of government or autonomous hospitals, officials said.

To facilitate the move, the cabinet has approved an amendment to the existing BMU law. The amendment is likely to be placed before the parliament during this ongoing session, they said.

The corporate model is necessary to ensure administrative and financial autonomy, allowing the hospital to attract highly qualified doctors with competitive salaries, said BMU officials.

“It would be run under the company act once the amendment of the act is passed in the parliament,” Prof Abul Kalam Azad, pro vice chancellor (administration) of BMU, told The Daily Star yesterday.

The decisions on the hospital’s mode of operation and manpower recruitment should have been taken much earlier, said Prof Syed Abdul Hamid of the Institute of Health Economics at the University of Dhaka.

“Were those decisions made earlier, the facility would not have remained non-functional for such a long time,” he told this correspondent yesterday.

The 750-bed hospital, established under a Tk 1,868 crore project, was inaugurated in September 2022. However, no dedicated workforce has been appointed so far, and limited services are being provided using BMU’s existing staff and budget.

Running the hospital under a private company model is likely to help prevent middle-class patients from going abroad for treatment, but the government should introduce a package The recruitment “In

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