Patients protest against increase in dialysis fee at Chamek Hospital

Chittagong Medical College (CHMEC) Hospital patients and their relatives are protesting to maintain the pre-fixed fee for kidney dialysis.

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As the fee has been increased to almost three times, the disoriented patients are in trouble. Thus, patients and their relatives protested against the increase in fees and reduction of subsidized dialysis sessions. Demonstrations started on Sunday morning in front of Sandor on the ground floor of Chamek Hospital. At that time, the agitators hung it for a while in the dialysis center. Later they opened the lock and protested by marching inside the hospital and standing on the road. Basically, hospital authorities are charging extra fees due to government directives and increase in dialysis sessions. The aggrieved patients have announced that they will protest if the additional fee is not reduced.
The dialysis center for kidney patients was opened on March 5, 2017 under Public Private Partnership (PPP) on the ground floor of Chameke Hospital. There are 31 machines for kidney dialysis patients. According to the agreement with the Ministry of Health, the multinational company Sandor will operate the center for 10 years.

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Dialysis services are offered at two rates in their institution. Meanwhile, the price of the service provided by the government subsidy was 510 taka. It has recently been increased to 535 rupees. Apart from this, the dialysis session which the patients used to get without subsidy was increased to Tk 2 thousand 935 recently. Not only because of this, dialysis which used to be done at subsidized cost earlier in 8 sessions per month, recently has to be done in 4 consecutive installments. Therefore, the patients started the movement to demand that the price of dialysis services be maintained earlier. They protested in front of Chamek Hospital director's office last Saturday as well. Later they protested in front of the dialysis center. But since Sunday morning, there has been a massive movement demanding that the previous fee and subsidy sessions be maintained as before. They sat in front of the main gate of the clinic and raised slogans to reduce the fees.
The relative of the patient from Chakaria. Yachin said, earlier it was possible to have eight sessions of dialysis within a month at a subsidized price. Hospital authorities said that from now on 4 means half session will be done in full fee. If we suddenly reduce the subsidy, where will we go? If dialysis is not done, the patient will die.

He came to take dialysis services from EPZ of the city. Hamid said, borrow money and come for dialysis every session. Fees are increased in New Year. So far I used to pay session fee of 510 taka. From January, 4 sessions were asked to be done at Tk 535 and the remaining four at Tk 2,935. I don't know how to get so much money. The clinic says we don't raise Sandor and Sandor says the clinic raises. We are not getting any solution.
Brigadier General Shamim Ahsan, director of Chamek Hospital, said that the agreement between the ministry and the private institution. Here we can do as much as our duty dictates. We have no chance to go beyond this. It has been said in higher circles. Patients also know our limitations. Moreover, the ministry has been informed in this regard. Apart from this, we are trying to do what we can locally with the help of the generous people we have. The dialysis capacity of the hospital is 6,500 people. However, the fee is increased due to exceeding this limit.
Sandor Manager (Administration) Manjur Rahman said, we have an agreement with the Ministry of Health. We are going by the service according to that contract. But the agreement mentions about increasing the fee every year. We used to provide dialysis services to about six and a half thousand patients here in a year. But for several years more than three times more patients are undergoing dialysis. To reduce the pressure, the hospital authorities may have decided to pay half of the subsidy and half of the full fee.