It is appreciated
that RAB�s action recently led to sentencing of the owner of an unauthorised diagnostic centre in Dhaka. But there are hundreds of such unauthorised and
undetected medical
centres of various kinds all over the country
Unauthorised and substandard medical centres
It is appreciated that RABs action recently led to sentencing of the owner of an unauthorised diagnostic centre, United Health Care and Diagnostic Centre, in the capital with one year imprisonment. The centre was also sealed off. Not only the centre was unauthorised, it was using date-expired chemicals for diagnostic tests and the environment inside it was dirty, not fit for such an enterprise dealing with human health. Interestingly, outside the centre, for attracting gullible patients, names and degrees of eminent physicians were displayed, but there was no chamber or sitting arrangement for them inside. And the test reports on various diseases used to be signed by only one health technician.
This is how this diagnostic centre operated in the capitals posh Gulshan area. One can only imagine what was received as health service by the people who had gone there for diagnostic tests. It would have been less worrying a fact if there were only a few such centres in the capital or in the whole country for that matter. But privately run diagnostic centres and health clinics have mushroomed over the years spreading even in the rural areas and hundreds of them are operating without proper authorisation and standards according to media reports that appear from time to time.
Most of these health centres are not only cheating the patients, they are dodging huge tax annually as well. There are other problems too. The presence of fake doctors and fake drug factories has also left the countrys health service in its present state.
In the absence of reliable service in the public hospitals --- which are still far from being adequate --- patients go to these private health centres spending a lot of money with the hope of getting better service. But even here they are cheated in the name of health service.
As a result, every year huge foreign currency is drained off from the country for medical visits to other countries by Bangladeshis. The fact is the health services, publicly or privately run, are failing to earn trust from a cross section of people. In some specialised areas, improvement has certainly been made, but the overall standard is still in a deplorable state and will continue to remain so, unless the overwhelming presence of fake diagnostic centres and clinics, doctors and drugs is not effectively contained. The health ministry can never neglect citizens right to receive sound health services.
