Doctors on strike, patient dies at RMCH

A patient died Friday afternoon at the Rajshahi Medical College and Hospital (RMCH) while hundreds of patients in Rajshahi city did not get treatment as the doctors resorted to strike since Thursday in protest against the jailing of a clinic owner, a physician himself, reports bdnews24.com.
Rajshahi Chief Metropolitan Magistrate sent Dr Samiul Haque Shimul, owner of Dolphin Clinic, to jail after rejecting his bail prayer in a case of alleged negligence in medical treatment that caused death of a patient.
The order prompted the doctors of public and private hospitals and clinics to go on an indefinite strike.
Dr Shimul is the Joint General Secretary of Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) and also Organising Secretary of Swadhinata Chikitsak Parishad of its RMCH unit.
The owners of private clinics had announced the strike on Thursday evening, demanding Dr Shimul's release.
Later at night, RMCH units of Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) and Swadhinata Chikitsak Parishad (Swachip) threatened to suspend medical services at all public and private hospitals and clinics in the city until Dr Shimul's release.
But it was said that the RMCH emergency department would operate with two physicians.
Ashraful Islam, 35, critically injured in a road accident, meanwhile, succumbed at the RMCH on Friday afternoon, a day after he was admitted.
His brother said Ashraful had been admitted around 9pm on Thursday and blamed his death on the doctors' strike, alleging that he had been denied proper treatment.
Asked about the allegation, the intern doctor of the ward, Tahmina Sultana Tama, said that the medical services at the hospital was not being hampered in absence of 'senior' physicians and that in case of emergency, the intern doctors were providing medical treatment to the patients in consultation with their seniors.