It was a midnight of January. I was sitting on the balcony of Hotel Solai at the heart of Vellore town. It was raining and cold wave was blowing. A four-member of Bangladeshi family was walking on the street in search of accommodation. Two of them were elderly and two others were children. They came to our hotel for seat, but did not get the desired accommodation. They again got down on the street in the rain and cold.
I presumed that without getting proper medical treatment in Bangladesh they came to CMC hospital in Vellore, which is situated around two thousand kilometres away from Dhaka and there is no direct communication between the two cities. Doctor Ida Sophia Scudder, a great humanist lady, established Christian Medical College Hospital in 1900 to serve the backward people of Tamil Nadu.
I supposed they went to various government and non-government hospitals for medical treatment and spent a lot of money and finally they were harassed in various ways by the doctors and hospital staff of their own country, Bangladesh. Circumstances compelled them to go Vellore for better medical treatment. But it was not easy to go a foreign country like India. It requires passport, visa and money. At the same time, without giving bribe to middle man passport and visa are not possible. Besides, there is devaluation of Bangladeshi taka against Indian rupee. Every year hundreds of crores of taka are going outside of the country for medical treatment due to lack of confidence on local doctors.
Those who have minimum capability, go abroad for better treatment. According to them the local doctors are highly commercial. In order to earn more money they are reluctant to pay minimum attention to patients and treat them properly. The Christian Medical College Hospital, a private run missionary and charitable hospital, is famous for medical treatment in Asia.
The hospital gives treatment thousands of Bangladeshi patients every month, where the treatment cost is cheaper than Bangladesh. There is separate registration office for foreign patients in the hospital and a separate desk for foreign patients at the police station, where most of the patients are seen from Bangladesh.
The hospital serves over 2000 inpatients and 7000 out patients daily with 67 wards, 92 clinics and 144 departments each day. Better medical treatment of thyroid cancer, urology, cardiology, paediatric, endocrinology, nephrology, orthopaedic etc is available there. In 2015, the Indian government issued 1 lakh 34 thousand and 344 medical visas for foreign patients and half of those for Bangladeshi people.
On the other hand, 97 thousands medical visas were issued for Bangladeshi people only six months of 2016. Bangladesh is the largest foreign clients of India's health services, said The Daily Star in a report recently. I am a cancer patient, but there is no adequate facility of cancer treatment in Bangladesh and around 91 thousand patients die of cancer annually. There are only nine government hospitals to treat cancer in Bangladesh - two in Dhaka and one each in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Bogra, Barisal, Mymensingh, Rangpur and Sylhet. The radiography machines at those hospitals are out of order as they have lost their economic life.
Now, the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital has radiotherapy facilities. Dhaka Medical College Hospital has two radiotherapy machines which are out of order for several months. The institute treated about 12,000 patients in 2016 and failed to treat almost similar number of patients due to lack of capacity, reports New Age. There are about 14 lakh cancer patients in Bangladesh and most of them have been suffering from breast and lung cancer. As I am a cancer patient I went to the experts of the highest government and non-government medical institutions of Bangladesh where the attending doctors told me that there was no hope of my life.
Finding no other way, I contacted doctor M J Paul of Christian Medical College Hospital for treating my disease and he advised me to go to the hospital. Accordingly I went to the hospital and after completing various tests he advised me for operation. Doctor Paul is an extraordinary person. He behaved with the patients like a true friend. His cordiality will always be remembered.
His humanist approach attracts everybody. He operated me with good skill. On the other hand, I also have undergone treatment at doctor Anuj Deep Dangi of Urology department of the hospital. He is a very sincere and efficient doctor. His kind attention to the patients is remarkable. All the senior doctors, including doctor Varghese Thomas, are good but the behaviour of a section of nurses, staff and hotel owners and their employees are not satisfactory.
The Christian Medical College Hospital runs on no profit no loss basis. The doctors of outstanding career never get involved in private practice. They work only in the hospital with missionary zeal. Bangladesh needs a medical service institute like CMC hospital. Our government should take an initiative to open a branch of the hospital in a suburban area of Dhaka to render medical services to the people of all sections of society.
A number of commercially run clinics and hospitals of foreign countries have set up their branches in Bangladesh and they are charging high rate for treatment. Whereas the treatment cost is cheaper at CMC hospital than the commercially run hospitals in Bangladesh. In this backdrop the CMC hospital authorities may open their branch and the Bangladesh government should provide all the logistic supports to them for better medical treatment of all the people, rich or poor. Now, I would like to tell some words about the people of Tamil Nadu, where the hospital is situated. Doctor Ida Sophia Scudder established the hospital for treatment of poor Tamil people.
The Tamil people have the independent spirit like Bangladeshi people. Tamil people love their native land very deeply. But, some of their temperaments are hot. There are some resembles among the people of Tamil Nadu and Bangladesh. Their some household activities are also similar to us. There are some cultural similarities in Bengali and Tamil people. They are Dravidian language people. They eat boil rice like Bengali people. Both the areas village people are live in thatched hut.
They also cut and process their vegetables with 'boti' like Bengali people. Tamil women wear 'sarees' like traditional Bengali women. Besides, there are some resembles among Tamil language and Bengali language. Their verb using and euphonic junction of final and initial letters are identical with Bengali language. In history, the Tamil people first raised voice for their mother language in 1937. In 1965, when the Tamil people demonstrated against Hindi to establish their mother tongue, Tamil, as official language police opened fire on them.
Violent mobs killed two police men. In two weeks of riots, around 70 people were killed. On February 21 in 1952, the then East Pakistan police opened fire and killed a number of students on Dhaka University campus, who were demanding our mother tongue, Bengali language, as official language. In 1999, UNESCO declared 21 February as International Mother Language Day, in tribute to the Language Movement of 1952.
The writer is a senior journalist
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