Illegal healthcare facilities: DGHS inundated with licence applications

The health directorate is seeing a barrage of applications from healthcare facilities for authorisation following the countrywide drive against unauthorised healthcare organisations.

Just in a single day -- on May 29 -- 558 such organisations applied to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) online. Yesterday's figure is yet to be known.

About 44 percent are new applications filed by healthcare facilities having no licences, while the rest are seeking renewal of their expired licences.

Healthcare organisations are filing for licences fearing raids, said the directorate officials. Once applications are filed, they check their documents and if those are found to be in order, they schedule an inspection date, the officials added.

"Many hospitals are not bothered about the stages following an application, such as, filing proper documents – they are only filing applications so as to be able to say that their licences are under process," said Masud Reza, assistant director (hospitals) at the DGHS.

There are as many as 2,276 healthcare facilities whose status is "pending", meaning they have applied for licences but have missing documents or made mistakes in the process.

Meanwhile, at least 267 illegal private hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and blood banks were closed by the DGHS officials during the nationwide crackdown yesterday.

With this, the number of such healthcare organisations has risen to 1,149 since the drive began on Wednesday afternoon.

Health officials said the drive would continue as a routine work.

"We will not let any unauthorised hospitals operate. Those who will meet the standard must apply for authorisation. We will form a panel for speedy authorisations," Prof Ahmedul Kabir, additional director general of the DGHS, told The Daily Star yesterday.

On Sunday, an unlicensed hospital in Narayanganj showed the height of inhumanity when its officials fled, leaving a mother and her just-delivered newborn on the operating table, after hearing that health directorate officials were raiding illegal hospitals in the area.

Padma General Hospital had started operating three years back, on the third floor of Haji Rozob Ali Super Market in Narayanganj's Shimrail.

Locals said previously the hospital was known as "Popular General Hospital", which was renamed as Padma General Hospital after Rab arrested a fake doctor from there on July 9, 2019.

After talking to locals, this newspaper came to know the names of its three owners -- Mosharraf Hossain, Md Sujan, and Dr Arif Hossain.

But this correspondent could not contact any of them.

One of the staffers of the hospital, identifying himself as Alamgir, picked up the phone when this paper dialled the number on the hospital signboard.

He said he was not aware of what happened as he was on leave. "There are eight owners of this hospital. But I don't have any phone number of them."

Ahammad Ali, director of the Rozob Ali Super Market, told this newspaper yesterday, "The hospital has been there for three years. They [owners] have not paid the rent for the last two years."

[Our Narayanganj correspondent contributed to this report.]