50 patients leave BSMCH as interns continue strike

Hospital sources said nine patients died during the period. Relatives of the victims claimed that the deaths were due to lack of treatment.

The interns began the wildcat strike protesting ransacking of an office at the surgery ward and assault of some doctors by relatives of a patient for alleged negligence in treatment.

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On Wednesday, the striking interns placed a six-point demand including assurance of safety and security of doctors and other staff and punishment of the attackers.

At about 8 am on Thursday, to the peril of hundreds of patients and their attendants, interns locked the hospital campus including the emergency wing. The locks were removed at about 12:30 pm at the initiatives of the local leaders of Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) and hospital authorities.

On Thursday, they vowed to go for harder programme if their demands are not fulfilled within 72 hours.

Dr Md Abdul Jalil Sheikh, director of the hospital, said higher authorities in the Health Directorate have been informed of the situation and efforts are on to restore normalcy. But there was no progress till yesterday.

Treatment facilities have collapsed as the 500-bed hospital with a handful of senior doctors is mainly dependent on interns. The hospital accommodates over 700 patients.

On Tuesday at about 1.30 pm, eight year-old Mohiuddin Sheikh, son of businessman Abdur Rahman Skeikh of Hatkhola Chawak Bazar area of the city, was brought to the hospital with critical burn injuries he suffered from contact with a live electric wire.

Doctors advised the boy's relatives to take him to Dhaka immediately as the hospital lacked facilities for treatment of such critical injuries.

The relatives requested the hospital authorities to allow a doctor to accompany the boy on way to Dhaka. The authorities declined, saying there was no such provision. They then ransacked the office at the surgery ward and assaulted some of the doctors.

The relatives later alleged that the doctors gave the advice without giving emergency treatment and proper nursing, a charge denied by the authorities.