Many patients on Sunday went back without treatment as Ad-din Medical College Hospital stopped providing outpatient services and taking new admissions after the Directorate General of Health Services revoked its licence following the deaths of six newborns on May 27.
Hospital authorities said that they were not providing outpatient services or admitting new patients after the licence cancellation, although treatment continued for patients already admitted to the hospital at Moghbazar in the capital.
Ad-din Foundation director for human resources and company affairs Tariqul Islam Mukul said that the hospital would soon appeal against the DGHS decision.
The DGHS on June 11 cancelled the hospital’s licence and allowed its authorities to seek a review of the decision within 30 days.
‘We will appeal shortly against the DGHS decision,’ he said.
Mukul had earlier said that the appeal would be filed on Sunday.
He said that more than 200 patients remained admitted to the hospital in critical condition, while 416 patients had been undergoing treatment in different departments when the DGHS cancelled the licence on Thursday.
The DGHS asked six hospitals to receive patients referred from Ad-din Hospital.
Hospital officials, however, said that none of those hospitals had come to receive any patients.
‘There are many critical patients who need uninterrupted care. We cannot refer them without any ready alternative,’ Mukul said.
As of Saturday, 234 patients remained admitted to different departments of the hospital. Among them, 48 newborns were undergoing treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit, while 12 patients were in the intensive care unit and six in the coronary care unit.
During a visit to the hospital on Sunday, New Age found that many patients had come for follow-up treatment despite the uncertainties surrounding the hospital operations.
One of them, Nilufa Begum, came from Nakhalpara for a post-caesarean check-up after giving birth at the hospital on June 7.
‘I did not find my doctor. She was not in her chamber, and I do not know where I will find her,’ she told New Age.
Another patient, Boby Akter, arrived with her four-year-old son for a follow-up consultation but returned without receiving treatment.
She said that her son had regularly visited a paediatric specialist at the hospital.
‘Now where will I go? I can’t take any decision,’ she said while leaving the hospital at about 12:15pm.
Mukul said that the hospital had been gradually scaling down its operations following the DGHS directive.
‘We can’t stop everything at once because many critical patients are admitted here. We are releasing patients once they recover or if they can arrange treatment at another hospital,’ he said.
