Hidden behind the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital (NIOH) on Mirpur Road, Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar is mistakenly known to many as the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases and Hospital, which was transferred to an adjacent plot long ago.

"Most of the people of Dhaka as well as the districts don't know that it's a fully furnished general hospital," an emergency counter clerk at the hospital told The Daily Star during a recent visit. They still take it for a cardiac hospital.

Even many doctors are not aware of the hospital's existence and refer patients to other already overcrowded hospitals, sources at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) said. If the DMCH doctors cannot accommodate patients in their hospital, in most cases they send them to Mitford Hospital and vice versa, they added.

In a vast 19.8 acre compound, Suhrawardy Hospital is housed in a beautifully designed three-storey building, which, according to a number of senior doctors, is the country's best and has the latest medical gadgets and facilities of a general hospital.

In fact, when it was first planned back in 1963, it was meant to be the only full-fledged general hospital in the erstwhile East Pakistan. The present authorities, too, believe that the hospital has a great potential for providing tertiary level health care, particularly to the residents of the northern part of the city.

Instead, the hospital has become a place of rampant cheating of credulous patients, pilferage and tender manipulation, and its immense premises a safe haven for crooks and criminals including commission agents of dishonest private clinics, drug-dealers, muggers, thieves, extortionists and even killers.

The situation really beggars belief.

A gang, which once controlled the criminal activities including drug peddling, arms trading, extortion, blackmailing and mugging at the now-evicted BNP Slum in nearby Agargaon, now uses the hospital as its base. Thieves carry out rampant pilferage of hospital's fixtures, furniture and equipment as well as valuables of patients at night. So, every one from patients to staff feels unsafe after dusk, said a security guard.

A professor of surgery at the hospital on condition of anonymity said a nexus of some young doctors and staffs at the emergency and outdoor departments and brokers of various dishonest private clinics regularly cheats the admission seekers to the hospital.

The professor also confirmed that on average 60 percent of the paying and 40 percent of the non-paying beds at the hospital remain empty, when in other government hospitals in Dhaka two to three patients are always lined up for every bed.

During a visit, The Daily Star found four out of seven beds in a non-paying room and one out of three in a paying room under the female surgery ward empty. A nurse on duty said 15 patients were there that day in the 30-bed ward comprising 21 paying and nine non-paying beds. But, in every other general hospital in the city, this is a ward where seats are always most scarce.

The Daily Star team also saw a lone sexagenarian patient lying despondently in a 10-bed room under the male ophthalmology ward. Lokiotullah, a peasant from Sonaimudi in Noakhali, said he went to consult Dr Lutfor Rahman, head of the ophthalmology department, at his private chamber and the doctor got him admitted to the hospital. The rustic man felt dejected living in the near deserted ward and was looking forward to the minor eye surgery he was scheduled to undergo to have done with the desolation.

A HAUNT OF CROOKS, GANGSTERS
Insider sources named a number of problems dogging the hospital for long. One is an appalling lack of manpower in some critical departments, which cannot be addressed, they said, as the hospital is still run by a project.

The hospital has only seven security guards. So, only two guards are tasked with maintaining security of the immense compound for an 8-hour shift, which is virtually impossible.

One of the guards said, at night, sometimes he has to abandon his usual post in fear of the prowling criminals and to remain hidden behind the building. At the evening, the guards on duty shut almost all the gates and windows of the hospital, turning it into a virtual fort under siege.

The area then comes under control of the gang of 20 to 25 criminals named after its leader Kajol, a notorious local kingpin who allegedly killed Chapati Babu, the leader of his rival group, in 2004 and established supremacy in the entire area housing some seven hospitals, sources said.

According to them, Kajol Group maintains close ties with and receives protection from local political quarters and law enforcers. They said it also grabs all the contacted work of the hospital allegedly in collaboration with some influential members of the Doctors Association of Bangladesh (Dab) and Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) posted at the hospital.

The gangsters even committed a number of murders, including that of Chapati Babu, on the hospital premises at night. A few months ago, they even beat a Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) member and a Rab informer black and blue, cracking their skulls, when they went there in search of a criminal.

MEDICAL COLLEGE: A WAY OUT
A move has been on for long to turn Suhrawardy Hospital into a medical college, especially considering that the seven specialised hospitals or medical institutes in the area would provide it with a rich spectrum of faculty.

According to Prof Zamal Nizamuddin Ahmed of the NIOH, "Suhrawardy Hospital should be turned into a medical university. It has the infrastructure required for that. A proposal was made during the Awami League regime to turn it into Begum Fazilatunnesa Medical College. But, nothing has come of that still."

Dr Ahmed said, overcoming political aversion, "The government should take a decision immediately. The campus is most suitable for such an institute."

However, the health ministry does have a plan to launch a 100-seat government medical college on the campus. On September 5, 2005 it formed a 6-member committee headed by the ministry's joint secretary (Coordination). According to a circular signed by Senior Assistant Secretary Aleya Aktar of the health ministry, the committee was supposed to prepare and submit by October 5 a complete proposal and implementation plan for establishing the medical college.

There were speculations in November and December that the college may open in this month, January 2006. But, that is yet to happen.

Still, an administration official of the hospital said with hope, "When it becomes a college, a lot of people like students, new staffs, teachers will be here. The insecurity will then surely dissipate and order restored."