Staff Correspondent:

Law Adviser Asif Nazrul has called on private hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic centres in Bangladesh to improve service quality and ethics instead of focusing solely on profits.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Private Hospital, Clinic and Diagnostic Owners Association in Dhaka, he emphasised that better care at home could stop patients from seeking treatment abroad.

Asif Nazrul said: “Doctors prescribe unnecessary tests, as soon as you go they give many tests. Many people are poor and the process of giving 14–15 tests to poor patients must stop. Another issue is having to buy specific medicines—why? In which place in the world do private clinics have fixed times for pharmaceutical company representatives to meet doctors?”

The law adviser said: “Another complaint is that test results are wrong. Many places give good results; I am talking about the bad ones. A general complaint that breaks my heart is the bad behavior of nurses. Nurses are unhappy, hospital staff is unhappy, they remain angry, they do not want to give good service. Why not? Nurses get a salary of Tk12,000. If a nurse gets Tk12,000, will she give good service? She will remain irritated. You make the profit, but make it fairly.”

He said: “Now people do not want to go to India or Thailand. You have the capacity to provide treatment here in Bangladesh. You proved it during the corona period. You gave service by sacrificing your own lives. If you increase the salary of workers, how much money will go from a small portion of profit? If you make Tk100 crore profit, then there is 10% less profit for providing better salary. In exchange for 10% less profit, the service that the worker will give will make up for it. Because of being an adviser, I had the opportunity to say these things. Please pay attention to these matters.”