Work likely to start by Dec

Construction of the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery is expected to begin by December, aiming to produce skilled healthcare providers, including surgeons, and provide state of the art facilities and proper treatment to around six lakh patients a year.

It would be possible after the project's financing plan is approved on being placed in any of the upcoming meetings of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, the institute's National Coordinator Dr Samanta Lal Sen told The Daily Star recently.

Initially each year, it will produce 10 to 12 doctors, who will attain the Master of Science in Plastic Surgery and be posted to burn units, scheduled to be constructed at every district under the institute, he said.

Proper treatment in the first 24 hours is crucial for burn patients so units at the districts will lessen sufferings, said Dr Samanta.

Now, only two expert surgeons are created per year while there are 52 surgeons in the country's eight burn units, including four in the capital, he said.

As per the project's sources, the institute will also train up nurses, paramedics, physiotherapists and persons specialising in dressings.

They add that it would have 500 beds, including 50 for the intensive care unit; 12 operating theatres, four each for the burn, emergency and plastic surgery units; and equipment such as burn tanks.

Initially, around Tk 500 crore will be spent to construct a 10-storied building in two years having three wings -- that of burn, plastic surgery, and administrative, academic and outdoor, said the project director, Prof Dr Abul Kalam. It will later be extended to 15 storeys, he said.

A two-acre land of the Tuberculosis Control and Training Centre in the capital's Chankharpool, near the Dhaka Medical College Hospital's burn unit, has been earmarked for the institute.

The health ministry recently started building a wall around the land after evicting 20 families of Public Works Department (PWD) employees and two lessees and dismantling their structures, including tin-shed houses.

The lessees claim they got the contracts from PWD while the tuberculosis centre's staff as well as some of PWD say the employees started living there after first using the land to store construction materials for Dhaka Central Jail.

The land also has what apparently looks like a shrine, the fate of which the project sources say will be decided later.

The Daily Star found a man, Md Arman, there claiming to have taken over from his father the role of caretaker of the “shrine” where he said one Hazrat Jarif Shah Bogdadi had been buried.

He said neither he nor his father could tell who the person was and when the “shrine” was established.