The Dhaka Medical College Hospital is all set to offer better healthcare services as the 600-bed new extension building is scheduled to open in just over a week’s time.
The construction of the handsome looking 10-storey building, built at a cost of Tk1.07bn, houses the first Bone Marrow Transplant Unit of the country – much to the relief of the cancer patients.
Not only that, the new advanced facilities are also expected to significantly ease the severe pressure of patients that the authorities have to deal within the old infrastructure. With the additional accommodation in the new building, the DMCH, the biggest public healthcare facility in the country, becomes a 2,300-bed hospital.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to inaugurate the new building, called DMCH 2, on October 3.
However, with just over a week to go before the opening, the hospital authorities are worried whether the new building will be able to function fully because of the construction of the much-hyped Gulistan-Jatrabari flyover.
The construction of one of the approach roads to the flyover that runs besides the new building is currently underway. The construction firm in charge of building the approach road has put up a number of high walls that have almost entirely blocked one of the entrances to the new DMCH building.
As a result, after the new building is opened, the vehicles carrying patients would have to go around either the Gulistan roundabout or the Bakshibazar intersection for entering the building. That, in turn, would kill a lot of time and give rise to serious traffic congestion in the area, hospital authorities feared.
DMCH Deputy Director Dr Md Mushfiqur Rahim recently sent a letter to the administrator of the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) informing about the predicament.
In the letter, Dr Rahim alleged that neither the DSCC nor the contractor had consulted the DMCH authorities before putting up the walls. He urged the DSCC authorities to keep the entrance of the new building free for the sake of smooth services.
Dr Bayezid Khurshid Riaz, project director of DMCH 2, told the Dhaka Tribune that both the new hospital building and the flyover were equally important public projects.
He said a number of DSCC high officials, including the administrator, chief executive officer and chief engineer, had already visited the site after getting Dr Rahim’s letter.
He said they had assured him of taking effective measures so that both the hospital and the construction of the flyover could go on smoothly without getting into each other’s’ ways.
Sources said the various departments under the Medicine Faculty of DMCH would be shifted to the new building. Only the departments under the Surgery Faculty would remain in the old building.
They also said the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit would be set up on the 9th floor of the new building.