Editorial
DMCH and private diagnostic centres
Break the obnoxious nexus
THAT corruption can take so many forms is very clearly depicted in a report exposing the abhorrent practice, of some of the doctors of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), of referring patients to private laboratories for pathological tests, in spite of the fact that it has its integral lab that works round the clock.
The report makes very damning indictment of the premier public hospital of the country. If such is the condition of the DMCH, one can only shudder at the thought of what might be the conditions prevailing in other public hospitals.
Public hospitals are designed to provide healthcare at a very minimum cost. And exploiting the sufferings of poor patients for personal gains not only desecrates the Hippocratic Oath, it is also an act of outright corruption. The malpractice is costing the DMCH an amount of taka one lakh daily.
There has been a very dubious nexus between some of the private pathological labs in the city and the public hospitals wherein these labs solicit business from the doctors of the government hospitals in exchange for what can be plainly termed as bribe.
The doctor in question clearly tried to dupe the patient to accept his suggestion to go to a private clinic, on the plea that the DMCH lab did not remain open round the clock, and that if the patient went to a private clinic that the doctor suggested, he would arrange a 40 percent discount. That the doctor had resorted to a blatant lie was exposed by a lab technician who pointed out that the hospital lab worked round the clock - and had been doing so for more than two months, and the tests that the doctor had recommended could very well be run at the lab.
It is commendable that the DMCH has made arrangement to keep the lab open for 24 hours a day. One would hope that this would attenuate the problems of the poorer sections of the people in need of medical service. But the fact that the number of patients utilising the service of the hospital lab has not increased in any significant manner is indicative of the fact that the 'referral business' is very rampant.
There can be no excuse for the leading public hospital in the country to be lacking in any facility that the private labs have. But if that is so then all efforts must be made to make up the shortcomings. The DMCH should also take stern action against those doctors that are indulging in such malpractice, and they may be quite a few in number.
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