Star Diary

Terrible Treatment

Last week I had to go to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) with my friend's relative who was suffering from stomach pain. We somehow managed to get an appointment but couldn't get any bed in the wards. One of the cleaners came to us and asked for some money, saying that he could arrange for a bed for the sick person. The condition of the patient was very critical and so we paid the cleaner the bribe he had asked for. After a couple of hours, a visiting doctor came and checked our patient. He prescribed some tests and added that it would be better for us to consult with a private medical representative available there, as the DMCH's X-ray and other departments might not be able to provide the report on time. We requested him to write 'urgent' on his prescription so that we could get the results as soon as possible. But he informed us that he had nothing in his hands. By God's grace, we somehow managed to ensure that the patient received the required treatment. Needless to say, the DMCH is the biggest medical centre of Bangladesh. Its annual budget is higher than any other medical college of the country. Then why should poor patients need to consult with private medical representatives to seek treatment? This is a question that most government medical institutes of the country must answer!
Bipul K Debnath
Dhaka College

THE OBNOXIOUS THEFT

A few weeks ago, I went to a reputed supermarket in Dhaka, with my father. We stopped at a point to look at a product and kept my purse with my cellphone in it in the front space of the shopping trolley. I turned around from the trolley for a minute and then when I turned back my purse was gone! It was gone in less than a minute! I immediately informed the sales people around who checked the CCTV footage. What's surprising is that they only have the CCTV but no one monitors it unless an incident has taken place. We checked the footage and found that it was a woman who was following me around for quite some time in Agora, and took my purse the moment I turned around, and walked away like any other shopper. The sales people immediately rushed to get hold of the woman but by then she had left. According to them, these kinds of thefts had been occurring for quite some time and quite a lot of people lost their belongings. What surprised me was that the authorities concerned of the supermarket took no action at all! In fact, no one even monitored the security camera footages. What is the need to install these CCTV cameras in every corner of the supermarket if there was no one to monitor it? A few other people also told  me that the same kind of things happen in other branches of the supermarket. Dhanmondi branch where many woman cover their heads and faces wearing veils and steal things. The authorities should do something to stop these kinds of incidents and should appoint people to check the security footages because what is the need to even install these cameras when they are way too ignorant to know how to use them?
Arshi Siddiqui Promiti
Maple Leaf International School
Dhaka