Taking the advantage of the film shortage, some corrupt employees in the radiology department of the hospital are doing illegal business. They are providing the service in exchange for money, though the service is free of cost at the DMCH.

"Not only X-ray films, we are running short of other materials needed for various radiological and pathological tests," admitted a senior official in the DMCH.

The DMCH radiology department needs some 300 X-ray films daily. "But we received only 1,000 films in the last one and a half years," said Moshiur Rahman Khan, store in-charge of the department.

He said the hospital director has been informed about the X-ray film crisis.

The radiology department staff take money from patients and their attendants for X-ray films, the patients alleged.

When asked, the officials of the Central Medical Store Depot (CMSD), which is responsible for procuring and providing X-ray films for the radiology department, refused to make any comment on the issue.

The patients said the hospital staff ask them to buy X-ray films from private diagnostic centres though the DMCH is supposed to provide the service free of cost.

"I needed an X-ray but employees in the X-ray department could not give me the service and this is the second day I have come here for the test," alleged Kabir, a patient.

The patients who come to the outdoor of DMCH are mostly poor who cannot afford costly tests in private diagnostic centres.

Sources said the authorities have asked the hospital management to purchase required X-ray films from local markets. But DMCH officials said they could not buy X-ray films from local markets because the price is much higher.