Shahabuddin Medical College Hospital sealed off: RAB
Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Sunday sealed off Shahabuddin Medical College Hospital at Gulshan in the location after detecting unauthorised testing of COVID-19 and issuing forged test results.
A RAB mobile court led by Executive Magistrate Sarwar Alam, conducted the raid at the hospital from 3:00pm to 10:00pm.
Through the raid, the RAB team also arrested two people--Dr Md Abul Hasnat, an assistant director of a healthcare facility, and store keeper Shahriz Kabir.
Shahabuddin Medical College Hospital sealed off: RAB
"The patients admitted here would be shifted and it could be sealed off. A normal case will be filed against a healthcare facility managing director and directors and others for forgery and other irregularities," said the RAB executive magistrate following the raid.
He also added that the hospital's license had expired a year ago and it had been involved in a great many other offences.
At least 14 COVID-19 patients were acquiring treatment at the private facility and a healthcare facility charged them extra, besides making claims to the patients that they conducted some recent tests multiple times without actually undertaking the tests, according to the RAB.
RAB executive magistrate Sarwar Alam led the mobile court that raided Shahabuddin Medical in the afternoon after a tip-off regarding COVID-19 test irregularities.
Sarwar Alam told reporters that they discovered that the hospital didn't have any PCR lab for testing COVID-19 samples, but they were undertaking tests with rapid testing kits, which didn't receive permission from the authorities concerned.
He also said that a healthcare facility issued forged COVID-19 test reports without testing samples of patients and added that the hospital pharmacy was fined Tk 2 lakh for storing unapproved medicines.
When approached, a healthcare facility officials could not give proper explanation about COVID-19 testing and the resources of these kits, said Sarwar.
Shahabuddin Medical College Hospital sealed off: RAB
Officials first said that they collected these kits from local sources and also claimed that they imported those kits, he added.
Sources at the Directorate General of Drug Administration said that they seized 20 rapid testing kits plus some COVID-19 test reports, which can have been done utilizing the unauthorised kits.
Hospital assistant director Md Abul Hasnat told reporters that these were using these kits for the purpose plasma donation and we were holding collected from Gonoshasthaya Kendra for trial.
Few days earlier, the government had suspended permission to conduct COVID-19 tests in five hostipal wards and diagnostic centres, including Shahabuddin Medical, in the united states.
The other hospitals are CARe Medical College, Stemz Healthcare, and Thyrocare Diagnostic in Dhaka, and Epic HEALTHCARE in Chittagong.
The medical director Monsur Ali admitted to the fact that their permission was suspended. He, however, claimed that the kits used were imported and he was unaware that these were being used.
RAB officials said that a healthcare facility authorities had been deceiving patients since April in the name of detecting COVID-19 infections using the unauthorised rapid test kits.
RAB-1 procedure officer Morshedul Hasan said that the Hospital also provided COVID-19 reports without testing samples.
