BARISHAL — A construction project at Barishal General Hospital that was supposed to take 18 months has dragged on for 48 months and remains unfinished four years past its deadline, depriving thousands of people in southern Bangladesh of medical care.
The 250-bed expansion of the new hospital building has not been completed, and patients are forced to take treatment on the floor because of a bed shortage.
According to hospital sources, the Barishal Public Works Department began the project in 2022 at a cost of about 23 crore taka (about $2 million) to upgrade the 12-story Barishal General Hospital to 250 beds. Construction was supposed to be completed within 18 months.
A site visit found that less than half of the work on the new 250-bed building has been completed. The Public Works Department, however, says 70 percent of construction is finished and the remaining 30 percent will be done by the end of this year.
The hospital’s main building still stands as a relic but is considered highly unsafe. With no alternative, the outpatient department operates in one of the two buildings and the emergency department in the other. With patient numbers rising daily, all sides are demanding that the hospital be expanded.
Barishal General Hospital, nearly a century old, opened in 1912. It was upgraded to 80 beds in the 1990s and most recently expanded to 100 beds with the addition of a diarrhea ward.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report