Those who were in need of immediate medical attention had to depend mainly on rickshaws to reach the hospitals and the number of those who finally made it was also very few. Some fortunate ones managed to get CNG three-wheelers, but all of them had to pay up exorbitant fares, in some cases, even three to four times higher than the normal charges.

Besides, many patients, particularly those from outside Dhaka, got stuck in the hospitals due to the blockade even though they have been recovered and discharged.

The staff and the doctors at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) said the number of out patients has decreased to almost 40 percent from the usual rate while at Suhrawardy Hospital and at National Institute of Trauma & Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (Nitor) in Shyamoli, the number dropped to 30 and 25 percent respectively.

During over half-an-hour stay at Nitor, The Daily Star found a patient with a broken leg arriving in a rickshaw with relatives. "I came to Shyamoli in a taxi-cab and from there I hired a rickshaw up to the hospital as the demonstrators blockaded the roads there," the patient Mohammad Masum of Savar said with an anguished face. They were forced to pay Tk 200 for the fare against the usual fare of around Tk 100, he added.

Inara Begum came to the DMCH all the way from Kamrangirchar to get her son Mizanur Rahman admitted who has been suffering from high fever for the last 11 days. "We frantically searched for a CNG three-wheeler to get here, but found none," she said adding that finally they hired a rickshaw at Tk 60.

Usually some 1,500 to 2,000 patients receive treatment from the DMCH outdoor on any given day, but in the last two days the number was no more than 700 patients per day, sources said.

Beds in most of the wards at the hospital that usually remain crammed with patients were found empty. The hospital staff said that they used to supply foods to an average of 2,000 patients in 45 wards of the hospital, but yesterday they provided food for 1,506 patients.

While getting to hospitals was proved to be a very hard task in itself, returning home was not easier either.

Relatives of a patient Raisullah, 60, had to wait at the DMCH entrance for nearly one and a half hour with the patient to get a CNG three-wheeler or taxi cab for Araihazar in Narayanganj. Failing to get any, they finally hired a microbus at Tk 900 to go to their destination.