>waiting at ‘death row’

>ATIQUR Rahman waited for days at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) to get a date for a life-saving operation. He finally got an assurance that the surgery would be performed soon after a specialist returns from abroad.
One week later in early Tuesday, the 22-year-old honours student from Barisal BM College died, ending a 40-day wait. He had a malignant tumour in his brain.
Atiqur’s is just one example of the sufferings patients are made to go through for weeks due to shortages in staff, equipment and other facilities at the country’s only public hospital that boasts a neurosurgery ward. (Full report)
Expenses snowball with the long waits: in many cases, costs shoot up way higher than the bills of a similar operation at private hospitals.
“Had I been operated upon in time, I could have left the hospital much earlier,” M Ershad Mia, 25, a former shoemaker for Arif Shoe Factory in Chittagong, told The Daily Star on his bed at the observation room of the neurosurgery ward.

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