BSMMU one-stop centre far off

Hundreds of patients have to take the trouble to move from one building to another every day for undergoing medical tests at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU).

The BSMMU authorities last year promised to set up a one-stop centre in one of its two new outdoor buildings so that patients can take all the tests there.

But no steps have been taken yet to shift all diagnostic sections to any of the two buildings inaugurated by the prime minister on November 22 last year.

Apart from a good number of blood tests, no other diagnosis, such as x-ray and cardiac tests, are carried out in the new buildings.

The Daily Star recently talked to several patients to learn about their sufferings at the country's lone medical university.

Abul Hossain, 70, whose wife was under treatment at ward-9 of C-block, went to the radiology department in another building -- B-block -- to know where he should take his wife for an X-ray.

The staff at the department asked him to go to the information desk on the ground floor of the cabin block. As he went there, a female receptionist advised him to go to the cardiac information centre in another building, D-block.

This correspondent followed him to D-block. As there was none at the centre, he went to the cardiac emergency unit on the ground floor of the building, around 300 metres from the cabin block. A receptionist there asked him to go to the orthopaedic emergency.

The elderly man then went to the orthopaedic emergency room but couldn't find anyone there.

As he was about to leave the building, this correspondent along with a BSMMU staff took him to a doctor at the orthopaedic emergency unit.

The doctor told him that X-rays were done on the eighth floor of the building, but the time for the test was over, and that he should go there the following day. Expressing frustration, the elderly man asked the doctor if they could set up a centre where all the tests could be done.

Hossain was not the only one who had to go through such bad experience.

Mohammad Khokon had to take his six-year-old nephew, a cancer patient, from one building to another for getting his tests done. The little boy was admitted to the paediatric department of D-block.

“From 9:00am, I have been moving from one section to another with my nephew. After some tests were done in D-block, I took him to the new outdoor building for blood glucose test,” he said.

Around 1:00pm, he took the boy to the basic science building near the outdoor buildings for a bone marrow test.

Unfortunately, the centre was closed though it was supposed to be open till 2:30pm.

He then took his nephew to the radiology department for an X-ray and found a long queue there. After a two-hour wait, a section officer helped him get his nephew X-rayed around 4:00pm.

Talking to The Daily Star, Prof M Iqbal Arslan, dean at the Faculty of Basic Science and Para Clinical Science, said back in 1998, former vice-chancellor Prof MA Quadery took an initiative to bring all the diagnostic sections to one place. But since then nothing was done to implement it.

The BSMMU authorities must be sincere in making sure that patients don't suffer like this. “I raised the issue at the last meeting of the academic council on September 29,” he said.

According to BSMMU doctors, though the authorities built two outdoor buildings for over Tk 600 crore, there was a lack of coordination in the planning for one-stop service. In most private hospitals, tests are done in one place.  

Contacted, BSMMU Vice-Chancellor Prof Kamrul Hasan Khan admitted that patients have been facing problems in undergoing tests there.

“It was not possible to shift all diagnostic departments to the new outdoor buildings due to space constraints.

“We will bring all those sections to one building to be built soon,” he added.