The Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) authorities are planning to provide ward boys or ayas (female attendants) with special identity cards in order to authorise their jobs.
Brigadier General Dr Mustafizur Rahman, director of the hospital, is believed to have asked the ward masters to prepare a list of the workers, who play a part in the hospital’s routine activities. The list is likely to be finalised soon.
Although the hospital authorities claimed that they are unaware of the number of such workers at present, several officials told the Dhaka Tribune that it would not be less than 500.
Mustafizur told the Dhaka Tribune that the DMCH is a 2,600-bed hospital but 3,000-3,200 patients stay there daily.
“The number of beds has risen gradually but we are running short of grade III and IV employees. The current number would have been appropriate had it been a 800-bed hospital. It is impossible to run the hospital without these workers, who have been part of the organisation since its inception,” he said.
The ward boys and ayas allegedly charge patients extra money for even when providing a small service. Besides, as they are not officially recruited by the authorities, they often demonstrate a lack of respect while serving patients.
These workers are allegedly recruited by leaders of grade IV employees and ward masters, who take a certain amount of money from the workers every day. Speaking about paying the ward boys and ayas, the DMCH director said: “They are not government employees and hence cannot be on the hospital’s payroll.”
“They usually help and assist the patients. If the patients are satisfied, they can willingly give the workers any amount of money. Now that they would be provided identity cards, they can be identified if anyone of them force patients to pay,” he added.
Meanwhile, the hospital authorities yesterday organised a press briefing and presented the parents, who had had one of their twin babies stolen from the hospital lately, with some toys and Tk15,000 in cash. RAB rescued the child later and arrested two women in connection with the kidnapping.
The couple, who attended the briefing, thanked the press, the RAB and the hospital authorities for rescuing their child. At the briefing, Dr Musfiqur Rahman said ayas had been ousted from the gynecology and the neonatal wards.
“We have already introduced identification tokens. No one is now allowed to go out of the hospital if there is a token mismatch. We plan to buy six more CCTV cameras to beef up security,” he added.
