People recently heading over to the Keraniganj Upazila Health Complex for medical treatments have most certainly stumbled across a bizarre scenario of cattle grazing in the hospital premises.
It would seem the premium on maintaining a clean and healthy environment for the provision of healthcare services has been sacrificed at the altar of the UHC junior mechanic's farming hobby.
Jashim, the said junior mechanic, has raised a small cattle farm right next to the mosque located inside the UHC premises.
Patients, nurses, doctors and other staffers of Keraniganj Health Complex and people attending the mosque, which is a separate structure from the main complex that includes a hospital, have all complained about the overbearing pollution from animal excreta.
Yet they can't overrule the whim of the junior mechanic, who is hand-in-glove with a driver of the complex in maintaining the farm.
Besides it also poses a public health risk as the decomposition of animal wastes in the dairy farm can release methane and ammonia.
The negligence of the authorities concerned is blamed for this appalling state of affairs.
The hospital staff including Imam the mosque Maulana Mufti Mobin Hossain and an ambulance driver Humayun Kabir alleged that another driver Bayezid and junior mechanic Jashim have occupied four rooms of the hospital for personal gain and started a dairy farm there.
Two low-level employees getting away with what is downright illegal, can only be the outcome of entrenched, endemic corruption.
Humayun said they also occupied the garage of the hospital, forcing him to keep the ambulance in other places that he must rent at his own expense. Rushing emergency patients from there to other hospitals on referral, is obviously hampered as a result.
“I have submitted written complaints twice but to no avail,” he said.
Besides, Jashim and Bayezid are also involved in embezzling money from the development work of the hospital, said Humayun.
There is an allegation against Jashim that he got the job by providing fake technical certificates and the hospital staff demanded probe against Jashim for his misdeed.
Contacted, Jashim and Bayezid simply dismissed the allegations brought against them as false.
Dr Mashiur Rahman, recently instated as upazila health officer and therefore in charge of the hospital, said “I have just joined the hospital a month ago but steps will promptly be taken against all irregularities that are brought to my attention.”
