A 'doctor' with no degree

Imagine a man who has studied humanities and commerce prescribing medicine for your newborn.

“Doctor” Abdul Kayum, 30, had been doing just that for the last two years at Rampura in Dhaka.

He had his own chamber at Hirosaki Pharmacy there.

The sign at the pharmacy boasted that he was a medicine specialist and specialised in treating infants and newborn. The sign went on to claim that he had medical degrees like PGT (child) and FCPS-1 (child), none of which were true.

Kayum actually passed HSC in commerce in 2006 and SSC in humanities before that. He actually bought a medical degree of a university for Tk 5 lakh in 2012.

His luck ran out yesterday when a mobile court backed up by Rab personnel busted him and sentenced him to two years in prison and fined him Tk 1 lakh. Quoting Kayum, Executive Magistrate AHM Anwar Pasha, who led yesterday's drive, said he enrolled in Premier University of Technology in 2007 but never attended any classes or sat for any exams.

Kayum had claimed that he completed his internship at the Premier University Hospital but could not say where the hospital was.

Pasha said Kayum used to memorise doctors' prescriptions and names of several medicines before using them for his prescriptions.

Physician Swapan Kumar Tapader, an official of the Directorate of Health Services present during the drive, said Kayum was risking patients' lives issuing wrong prescriptions and giving wrong treatments.

“He could not even answer basic questions of medical science,” Swapan said.

The court yesterday caught Kayum when he was examining a patient at his chamber.

The court also fined the pharmacy owner Tk 1 lakh.