Staff Reporter:
Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) has nearly completed construction of a 20-bed tent-based field hospital on its premises amid huge onrush of particularly measles inflicted children requiring immediate admission, officials said yesterday.
“The (field) hospital is being built to ensure no patient is denied treatment due to lack of beds during disease outbreaks,” health minister Sardar Mohammad Sakhawat Husain yesterday told reporters while visiting the Dhaka’s main state-run medical facility.
He said the construction of the makeshift hospital was by now almost completed which could be used as well for treating patients in case of outbreak of diseases like dengue or cholera later.
DMCH director Brigadier General Mohammad Asaduzzaman said the main hospital would engage re-quired number of doctors, nurses, ward boys, and all necessary medicines to treat patients at the tempo-rary facility.
Bangladesh Army and the Public Works Department extended their hands to DMCH authorities build the makeshift hospital at the open spaces of complex ensuring proper drainage and power supply including air conditioning systems as well.
Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) oversees the makeshift facility’s construction.
DGHS deputy director for hospital management Dr Syed Abu Ahammad Shafi said while the measles cases were currently on the rise there could be an outbreak of diseases like dengue during the upcoming monsoon.
He said the tent hospital equipped with related facilities was required as the main DMCH building ap-peared inadequate to provide rooms during onrush of patients with such diseases.
Shafi added that the field hospital would be operated under DMCH supervision.
