At a time when the nation is facing the worst ever public health emergency in history caused by the pandemic, any gross irregularity by health service providers is indefensible. Regrettably, rampant violation of rules, norms and ethics of this noble profession has been going on amid the pandemic despite the government's stern warnings and directives against such practices. Noticing such blatant display of illegal as well as unethical activities by some privately run hospitals and diagnostic clinics in the city, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) on Tuesday suspended their operation. The alleged anomalies in the service provided by those health clinics involved employing of unlicensed doctors, nurses and other staff as well as charging patients exorbitantly, above the government-fixed rate, for doing diagnostic tests. Also, driven by a sheer profit motive, they were keeping some patients in ICU, though the latter did not need any such service. Further, those suspended entities claiming to be health clinics were charging excessively for their so-called service. In some cases, those clinics had few or no doctors and other support staff. In most cases, to add insult to injury, there was hardly any dependable infection prevention or clinical waste-disposal practice in place. Some were even treating both Covid and non-Covid patients as apologies for ICUs. These are instances of criminal offence and, as such, those involved in the scam deserve punishment as dictated by law. Clearly, the hospitals in question, situated on the same premises of a multi-storied building in the Mohammadpur area of the city, took no lesson from the harsh punitive measures that the government had taken last year against other such private clinics and their operators for their being devoid of any ethics, morality or respect for law. This points to the shockingly brazen attitude towards law or morality on the part of the clinics now under scrutiny. It is believed that the DGHS-appointed team which carried out the investigation into those so-called hospitals and where the wrongdoers were caught in the act have only unravelled a menacing trend of dismal opportunism. Even late last month, a DGHS inspection team found similar instances of widespread irregularities and flouting of all law and norms by some clinics in Uttara with abandon. Though those setups passing for clinics lacked necessary equipment or even trained manpower including doctors, they were treating Covid patients and that, too, without government permission.
Such deplorable state of affairs in the hospitals and diagnostic clinics in the private sector is quite unacceptable. The hospitals and clinics in question as suspended by the DGHS are being probed for their alleged fraudulent practice. But there are other hospitals in the private sector that cannot be blamed for any such bad practice; in fact, these have been rendering useful service. Even so, many among them are too expensive for the common people to access. This is not fair, to say the least, in a country where, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are only 5.26 doctors for every 10, 000 people. The government should prevail upon these hospitals so they may also serve the less privileged section of society. For now, the hospitals being probed, if proved guilty, should be brought to exemplary justice. The government is required to put its foot down to discipline all such errant operators in the private health sector as it is doing, especially at such testing times.
