Brokers lure DMCH patients away to clinics

A gang of brokers lure patients from Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) promising better treatment and land them in dire situations at private clinics, often leading to death.

There are about 12 private clinics near the DMCH where patients are lured to.

A Daily Star investigation revealed that most of the clinics have neither legal documents nor any trained doctor, nurse or anesthetist to perform operation. Authorities of some of the clinics said they have applied for registration.

A section of dishonest officials of the health directorate are involved in this dangerous game of playing with life, sources said.

On average, about 50 patients go to the DMCH out-patient department (OPD) every day for consultation or admission for delivery, surgery or treatment of burn injury and another over 100 go to the emergency. But most of them fall in the hands of brokers.

A nuisance like dragging a patient away from the DMCH emergency is not an uncommon scene, the sources said.

"This is an everyday affair here and we dare not resist the organised syndicate," said a security guard at the emergency.

After grabbing, the brokers huddle the patient into a waiting ambulance to take him to a nearby clinic.

Each broker usually makes out Tk 4000 to 6000 a month as commission from the clinics. The commission is about Tk 200 for a delivery patient and Tk 500 to 1000 for general surgery like hernia, cleftlip and minor burn.

Seeking anonymity, a broker said, "We have a gang leader and have to pay a small amount of our commission everyday. This varies from person to person but on average it is Tk ten to twenty per patient."

He said, "Our leader maintains link with a section of DMCH doctors and private clinics. Police are also bribed".

There are beautiful signboards at the entrances of the clinics showing names of reputed doctors and surgeons, who never go there. "There is a number of clinics which use names of reputed doctors to attract patients but those doctors actually do not practise in the clinics," said a doctor at DMCH.

Because most of the surgeries and deliveries take place without the help of trained doctors and nurses, many of those end up in mishaps or lifelong disability.

A delivery patient-- Amirun Begum --lured from DMCH emergency gate to nearby Dhaka Maternity Clinic died on Wednesday.

The health directorate is supposed to conduct regular inspection and is empowered to cancel registration or shut down a clinic for irregularity or negligence in duty but such an action is very rare.

The Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BMDC), an association of doctors, also ignores the dangerous practice.

When contacted, BMDC Registrar Zahedul Haq Basunia said, "We receive 10 to 15 complaints of malpractice or negligence in a month, but we are forced to drop most of those as the complainants fail to fulfill BMDC criteria in lodging their complaints."

He said if the BMDC is convinced that there should be an investigation, its Disciplinary Committee initiates it.

But in most cases investigations are dropped halfway due to the lengthy process and many end up in "compromise". Often, investigation is stopped because of intervention from higher authorities, he said.

Sources said, in reality, most of the doctors accused of irregularity went unpunished in the past.

In 1994, BMDC cancelled licence of doctor Arun Jyoti Chakma who worked at Comilla Health Centre and of medical assistant Asit Baran Chakrabarty in the district for negligence in duty. Both were allowed to practise again after three years.