DMCH to get bigger, better outpatient unit

The outdoor department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) is going through an expansion. Hospital authorities expect to start providing service from the expanded outdoor premise within one-and-a-half months.

The DMCH outdoor service, located beside Central Shaheed Minar on Dhaka University campus on the first and second floors of a three-storey building, has been at the same place since the 1960s. The number of patients has increased sharply in the last 20 years, but the outdoor department had seen no expansion, until now.

DMCH Director Brig Gen AKM Nasir Uddin said the department is being expanded due to its space constraint to host a large number of visitors everyday. To accommodate them, a temporary 7,500 sq ft steel structure is being constructed, where additional patients can also be served.

Hospital sources said the outdoor department was constructed in line with the hospital's initial 700-bed layout. DMCH was established in 1946.

"Around 4,000 to 5,000 visitors come for outdoor service every day during regular times. Due to the shortage of space, treating such a large number of patients have been difficult for some time now," the hospital director said.

"The insides of the department is crowded, which forces patients and health workers to work under severe heat. Sometimes a patient has to sit all day before obtaining service," he added.

When this correspondent visited the outdoor department last year, he saw it filled to the brim with patients and attendants, with suffocating heat and humidity, as ceiling fans overhead could not keep up with the number of patients. On top of this, counter queues move at a snail's pace, making the environment even more unbearable.

Once outdoor service begins at the expanded premise, the medicine and child departments' outdoor services could be shifted here, as these are the busiest sections with around 1,000 visitors everyday.

The space freed up by shifting these sections could be allocated to expand services of other departments, while departments which previously could not offer outdoor services due to space constraint might be allocated space to operate. There are also plans to transfer the ticket counters here.

Additionally, toilets will be built at the current outdoor premise as there's a longstanding shortage of it for visitors.