Anaesthesiologist with an SSC, surgeon a fifth-grader!

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) claims to have traced a hospital in Dhaka where the owner, a Secondary School Certificate (SSC) holder, used to work as the anaesthesiologist. The surgeries were done by a person who had been educated up to primary school. ‘National Care General Hospital’ at Dhaka’s Mohammadpur area was closed down and seven including the owner have been punished, according to a statement by RAB. The hospital is within a few hundred yards of the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (NITOR). A RAB Executive Magistrate sentenced the owner, Babul Chandra Paik, 42, and staff Ratan Krishna Majumder, 43, each a year in prison and fined them Tk 105,000. RAB said Paik worked as the anaesthesiologist and Majumder performed surgeries. Five other staff of the hospital have been also fined Tk 5,000 each. The hospital maintained a team of ‘brokers’ on a commission basis, who used to hook patients from the nearby state-run hospital for orthopaedics, claimed RAB, according to a news agency.