ACC drives at 11 hospitals find 40% medics absent

Sayeed Muhammad of DOT
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in a number separate drives found 40% of doctors absent in 11 government hospitals including three in the capital city yesterday.
Though the rate of absentee doctors was 11% in the three Dhaka hospitals, it was 61.8% in the eight hospitals and health centres outside Dhaka city, reports The Daily Star citing a press release of the commission.
Some 11 teams of the anti-graft watchdog conducted the five-hour-long drives in those hospitals and health centres since 9:00am to find the irregularities, it said.
“A total of 92 out of 230 doctors were found absent in 11 hospitals, which is 40 percent of the total number,” the release reads.
However, the teams found 81 out of 131 doctors absent in the eight hospitals outside Dhaka. Here the absence rate was 61.8%.
The drives were conducted at Workers’ Welfare Hospital (Dhaka), Maternity and Child Health Centre (Dhaka), Mugda General Hospital, Muktagacha Upazila Health Complex, Delduar Upazila Health Complex, Pirgacha Upazila Health Complex, Godagari Upazila Health Complex, Kumarkhali Upazila Health Complex, Atgharia Upazila Health Complex, Pabna Sadar General Hospital and Dinajpur Sadar Hospital.
Meanwhile, an official working at the emergency unit at Mugda General Hospital was sacked following an ACC order. Md Abu Musa Mian was terminated on charge of taking bribe, the release also said.
The ACC conducted the drives upon receiving complaints of irregularities at its hot line, said the anti-graft body’s Director General Mohammad Munir Chowdhury.
“The deterioration in the health sector is saddening. Those who don’t have the spirit of serving humanity should leave the profession. The ACC will take stern action in terms of negligence in discharging duties. The health sector of the whole country will be under the radar of the ACC,” he said.