There are some 1550 beds in total in four out of these five hospitals and 135 of these will be dedicated to the poor patients.

Officials of the recently completed hospital belonging to the Apollo chain, which started its operation from April 16, said ten per cent of its 450 beds would be kept reserved for free treatment of patients who can not afford to pay.

Sources say that as the budget for the current fiscal year (2004-05) waived duties over all forms of imported medical equipment to facilitate the growth of hospitals of international standard, more and more companies are coming into the picture to provide world class medical facility in Bangladesh.

Abu Sayeed, consultant of Continental Hospital Ltd in Gulshan, said that the hospital will have executive health checkup and advanced health-counselling facilities. It is scheduled to open in June.

Although it is targeting the upper middle class, the 450-bed Continental Hospital also plans to serve around 20 very poor patients free of cost. Continental will have doctors and consultants from home and abroad with a Malaysian team supervising, said Abu Sayeed.

Square Hospitals in Panthapath also starts its operation inJune. The two other hospitals pledging world class service are Escort Hospitals at Nikunja, which will work in collaboration with Japan Bangladesh Friendship Hospital, and American Hospital Consortiums llc (AHCL) which will be set up on the space allotted for the Kuwait Moitree Hospital in Sector 6 of Uttara.

"We have decided to hand over the vacant Kuwait Moitree Hospital, which has been lying idle for a long time, to the American company. There is a condition that 20 per cent of the 200 beds at the hospital must be kept reserved for free treatment of the poor," said a top official of the Health Ministry.

Representatives of these hospitals said that their main aim was to save around 3,000 crore Taka which is being drained out of the country every year for treatment abroad.

Square will be backed by the world-renowned Bumrungrad Hospital of Bangkok where a large number of Bangladeshi patients go every year.

"The hospital will have highly qualified physicians from the USA and Europe along with local doctors. It will have state of the art equipment like logic 9 ultrasound machine, finest intensive care and coronary care units, two kath labs with flat panel machines, latest MRI and 16 slice CT scan, interventional radiology and top class cardiac treatment facilities. This will be one of the best hospitals in Asia. Our only aim is to stop patients from going abroad as we will provide them with world class physicians at home," said head of medical services Dr Rubaiul Murshed.

"We do not have a shortage of good doctors or medical facilities. It is the management, which is holding us back. If our patients are treated with proper care and dedication and with our optimum medical resources, we can show groundbreaking performance in medical tourism. Soon, patients from Nepal and Myanmar will come to Dhaka to avail such high standard facilities," he added.

Square also promised to keep 30 beds for the needy patients. It plans to develop Telenetry service through which it will treat patients by using satellite communication. The system will be developed by 2010.