They are there yet hard to find

Some good Samaritans rescued 10-year-old Russell from the rail lines in Kamalapur Railway Station and rushed him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on November 8 with serious injuries.

The injuries left him all bloodied and unable to speak. There was nobody to identify him. Russell was put in Ward-206 of the hospital as an unidentified male patient. 

He was arguably lucky as the attendant for the patient in the next bed took care of him. She also raised money to pay for additional costs that came with the surgery Russell needed during his stay at the hospital. 

Russel eventually recovered but 55 days had gone by before his mother could find him.

After an emotional reunion, his mother Rohima Begum, who lives in  Keraniganj's Atibazar area, thanked the hospital staffers and the attendant for treating her son.

Not all patients who are brought into the hospital unidentified get to have a happy ending like Russell had.

In October, 2011, Matora Begum's three sons were desperately looking for their mother a day after she had left their home in Old Dhaka.

Although she was 82, Matora, a neurological patient with a history of leaving home before, was physically strong enough for solo endeavours.

Not finding her at any relatives' homes or the homes of her three daughters, her sons filed a missing person case with the police and went to several hospitals, including the DMCH.

Recalling those emotionally unbearable few days, her youngest son Kamruzzaman Khan said he went to the DMCH on a Thursday and enquired about his mother at the information desk, emergency section, and different wards. He told them how she looked, belongings she had and that she loved chewing beetle leaf.

Failing to find his mother, he returned to the hospital the next Saturday and returned empty handed.

He went to the DMCH again the next day. “While I was revisiting a ward of medicine department, an experienced nurse took a long look at me before asking me to tell her about a few belonging she could have had with her. I told her a bunch of keys in a ring. Her face turned radiant and immediately asked a fellow nurse to bring the keys. I recognised the keys.

She told me to go to the mortuary. I finally find my mother.”

Matora was admitted to the DMCH as an unidentified patient on the Thursday her son had gone there to look for her. She had suffered a stroke and had died the following day, Kamruzzaman said quoting the nurse.

“Around nine to 10 months ago, two student of Jagannath University brought in [to Sir Salimullah Medical College Hospital] an old woman. Initially, the students took care of her. They stopped coming after a few days. The hospital authorities paid for treatment cost but the women would have survived had she got the family support and care,” said a doctor of SSMCH preferring not to be named. 

She was laid to rest unidentified.

According to Anjuman Mufidul Islam, it received 1,195 unclaimed bodies from the DMCH, SSMCH and National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR) via police in 2017-2018 fiscal year.

The figure was 1,345 in 2016-17 and 1,322 in 2015-16, said the charitable organisation that organises the funerals for unidentified bodies.    

Sekander Ali, mortuary assistant of DMCH said they have an instruction to keep an unidentified body for a week before handing it over to Anjuman Mufidul Islam for their funerals.

There are five refrigerators that can keep 20 bodies but three of them were broken, he said, adding that they can only keep eight bodies now and have to send out bodies in two or three days after they arrive.

During a visit to the three large public hospitals in the first week of December, The Daily Star found six unidentified patients in DMCH, one each in SSMCH and NITRO.

“A separate arrangement in every hospital (public and private) is necessary for this kind of patient, otherwise it will be difficult for them to survive, said another doctor at DMCH.

The public hospitals treat unidentified patients for free but patients bed-ridden and unable to speak struggle.

The pressing issue is to find out the identity of an unclaimed patient. But unfortunately there is no standard system in place with which an unidentified patient could easily be found and identified by their loved ones.

Though police have a role in finding out their identities, in many cases they do not follow up after dropping off unidentified patients, sources in the hospitals said. 

Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner (media) of Dhaka Metropolitan of Police, said they provide assistance for finding addresses and relatives of such patients, if they are informed of such matter. He also said they give equal importance of any missing person's complaint from relatives.

Director of DMCH Brig Gen Nasir Uddin said, “If a patient can say their mailing address, we try to contact their family. But if they fail, we take the help of the social welfare department of the hospital to rehabilitate the patient after recovery.

“We are thinking about introducing a webpage of the hospital from where people will be able to know details about the unknown patients. We will provide every details of them along with pictures,” he said.

This is something widely practised in hospitals abroad, including in neighbouring India.  

Director of NITOR Gani Mollah said he had instructed the staffers at the hospital to inform him about unidentified patients so that he could arrange special care for them when they are brought to the hospital.

Despite there being about 600 hospitals and clinics in the city, most unidentified patients end up in the three major public hospitals. Private hospitals often show reluctance in treating unidentified patients.