A mobile court yesterday busted and sealed off a fake cancer hospital run by a number of doctors, officials and employees of the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH) and Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in Mohakhali of the capital.
The court also sentenced two employees of the hospital named ‘Doctors’ Chamber’ to two years in prison and fined them Tk2 lakh each. In default, they would have to suffer another three months in jail.
Convicts Beauty Begum, 38, and Shahadat Hossain, 24, were sent to jail while a total of 12 patients, who had been undergoing treatment at the hospital, were admitted to the NICRH for proper treatment.
The convicts said a person named Tayabur Rahman, along with Mahbub-ul-Alam and Nayan Hasan, had been running the hospital with the assistance of two NICRH doctors Golam Mostofa and ARM Rafiqul Islam. The mobile court found prescriptions and other documents that showed involvement of the two with the hospital.
The convicts also disclosed that Mahbub Alam, a leader of the ward boys at the NICRH and Abul Hasan, a stenographer at the DGHS, were the key people of the fake institution. They said they would entice NICRH patients into getting admitted at the hospital, saying the service offered would cure their cancer rapidly.
Executive magistrate AHM Anwar Pasha who led the mobile court told the Dhaka Tribune: “During primary interrogation, convicts Shahadat and Beauty admitted that some unscrupulous NICRH and DGHS staff teamed up to run the hospital.”
The magistrate said during the drive, they had found Beauty, having no expertise or training, applying chemotherapy to patients.
“The hospital neither had any registration nor any doctor”, said Pasha, adding: “At least three doctors, six nurses and three cleaners are mandatory to operate a 20-bed hospital, but the hospital, with only four cabins and 18 beds, had no doctor, technician or nurse.”
He said after the hospital was sealed off, all 12 patients were shifted to the NICRH. They were identified as Lalu Miah, Abul Hashem, Kabir Hossain, Maleka Begum, Abdul Karim, Nur Begum, Md Golam Mostofa, Parul Akhter, Jahanara Begum, Bul Hossain, Altaf Hossain and Kashem Miah.
Speaking about the fake hospital, patient Kabir Hossain of Jhalakathi said: “I visited Dr ARM Rafiqul Islam over a month ago but he suggested me to get admitted to ‘Doctor’s Chamber’, saying there was no vacant seat at NICRH at the time.”
“I’ve been taking treatment here for the last one month. The doctors would visit me twice a day in exchange for Tk 2000 a day while I was charged Tk 300 for seat rent per day. Besides, we were asked to purchase medicines from ‘Mayer Doa’ medicine shop located on the ground floor of the building”, said Kabir. “In the last 30 days, my expense stood at Tk 30,000.”
Major Md Asif Kuddus, a deputy director of RAB-1, and Dr Yogesh Chandra Roy accompanied the mobile court.
