In the wake of government’s move to bring back discipline in the country’s private health sector, owners of the private hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and blood banks seem to have become desperate to renew or get licenses following the formation of task force.
Most of the private health facilities have been running their businesses without renewal of licenses for long as criticism started pouring on following exposure of the fragility of the health sector due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to officials of the hospital branch of the Health Department, owners of private hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and blood banks have become active for renewal of their licenses after the announcement of the task force formed by the Ministry of Health and family Welfare. But most of the hospitals and clinics were earlier reluctant in this purpose.
Even now, institutions like Bardem have also not been able to show all the paperwork for license renewal.
The task force formed by the Ministry of Health to complete the renewal of licenses or registrations of private hospitals expired on Sunday. During this period, a total of 12,127 applications have so far been submitted to the hospital branch of the health department for renewal of registration.
Of them, 4, 519 licenses already have been renewed. The number of pending applications is 7,608. But, about 3,500 more organisations have not yet applied for renewal of registrations.
The Bangladesh Private Clinic Diagnostic Centre Owners Association has sought some more time for those organisations. But, according to the decision announced by the task force, such institutions will be identified as illegal from now on and their activities might be stopped.
Earlier on July 26, the Ministry of Health formed a strong task force on COVID-19. The second meeting of the task force held on August 8 decided to resolve the issue of renewal of private hospital licenses.
At the end of the meeting, it was decided that the licenses of the private hospitals have to be renewed by August 23. Those who would not be able to do so within this period, they would have to shut down their activities, the meeting was told.
According to the hospital branch of the Health Department, more than 15,000 organisations have been operating hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and blood banks across the country with registration from the health department at different times since 1982.
Since the announcement of the task force on August 8, a total of 12,120 applications have been submitted till August 23 while 3,473 other organisations have not yet applied.
Officials said 3,390 among those institutions, which have applied so far, are waiting for verification. After verification and selection, a total of 3,304 applications remained pending due to problems in some papers.
Shibbir Ahmed Osmani, Member Secretary and also a Deputy Secretary (Public Health-1) of the task force formed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said those who have applied within the time frame announced by the task force but have not yet completed the licensing process will not face any problem,because they are in the process. “But, those who have not even applied within this period will be declared invalid. In other words, the previous decision to stop their activities will remain in force.”
It is widely known that even though there is an obligation to renew the license every year, most of the organisations were not abiding by the rules. As a result, a large number of private hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and blood banks have been operating without renewing their licenses.
When the Department of Health started conducting the campaign, it was seen that most of the private hospitals had not renewed their licenses for the last 3-4 years.
Dr. Md. Mainul Islam, General Secretary of Bangladesh Private Clinic and Diagnostic Centre Owners’ Association, said that more than 12,000 applications have been submitted for the strictness of the task force.
He said that they have requested the taskforce and concerned other authorities for not taking measures against those organisations which could not apply yet.
“We have requested the authorities to give those organisations one or two weeks’ time more so that they could be able to apply by maintaining all the requirements”, he said.
