Boost for burn treatment
The Ecnec yesterday approved a Tk 522 crore project for the establishment of the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery at Chankharpool in the capital.
A planning ministry official said the project would be implemented completely with public money.
Dr Samanta Lal Sen, chief coordinator of the burn units across the country, told The Daily Star that the construction work of the project is likely to begin by next month.
Once set up, the institute would be the largest of its kind not only in South Asia but also in the world, he claimed, adding that one of its main aims would be to produce burn specialists and plastic surgeons of international standards.
He said currently there are just 52 plastic surgeons for around 6 lakh burn victims across the country.
Initially every year, the institute would be able to produce 10 to 12 doctors who would attain the Master of Science in Plastic Surgery to be posted to different burn units, expected to be set up at every district under the institute.
At present, Bangladesh gets just two expert plastic surgeons a year, Samanta said, adding that the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital would continue to function as a burn unit after the project implementation.
Project sources said other objectives of the institute would be to train up nurses, paramedics, physiotherapists and staff specialised in dressings.
It would have 500 beds, including 50 for the intensive care unit, 12 operating theatres (four each for the burn, emergency and plastic surgery units), and equipment such as burn tanks, added the sources.
Prof Dr Abul Kalam, director of the project, said the approved money would initially be spent to build a 10-storey building in two years. Later, the building would have five more upper floors, he added.
The building would have three wings meant for burn and plastic surgery, administrative and academic activities, and outdoor, he said.
A two-acre land of the Tuberculosis Control and Training Centre at Chankharpool, near the Dhaka Medical College Hospital's burn unit, has been selected as the project site.
The health ministry evicted a number of illegal occupants from the land except a so-called shrine where, according to a self-proclaimed caretaker Md Arman, one Hazrat Jarif Shah Bogdadi had been buried.
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