Another super specialised hospital in Dhaka by 2026 on cards

The government has planned to build another super specialised hospital – just across the first one – at Shahbagh in the capital.

With the construction of the first super specialised hospital under the auspices of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University almost to an end, the proposed 750-bed second medical facility along with the BSMMU and Birdem General Hospital will turn Shahbagh into a "hospital hub" in the next five years, say officials at the Economic Relations Division.

Funded by South Korea, the $200 million project will facilitate general surgery, gynaecology, surgical oncology, and ENT and eye treatment. The hospital will also have a 50-60 bed dialysis centre with 10 beds dedicated for children, said the officials.

Zulfiqur Rahman Khan, project director of the slated super specialised hospital, hopes the management of this medical facility "will rival" that of Square Hospitals or Evercare Hospital Dhaka [previously Apollo Hospitals] – two expensive private medical facilities in Bangladesh.

"Patients go abroad mostly for the hospital environment and medical services there. But we too have specialised doctors and are able to provide patients with better healthcare. If the medical skills and management could be put together in a hospital at home, the tendency of going abroad for treatment would certainly go down," he told The Business Standard.

Annually, about three lakh Bangladeshis go abroad for medical treatment. India tops the list of medical tourism destinations followed by other countries like Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Dubai. With the Covid driven international flight suspensions in 2020 and 2021, the flow of outbound medical money saw an unprecedented drop.

Currently, Bangladesh does not have any such "super specialised" hospital. The BSMMU – a tertiary level medical facility – is considered to be the apex treatment facility.

The BSMMU Super Specialised Hospital One, a $122.25 million medical infrastructure also funded by South Korea, is slated for launching in February 2022; the construction of the 11-storey second hospital on three acres of land on the former Betar Bhaban premises will begin in 2023 and is expected to complete in three years.

Preferring not to be named, officials at the Economic Relations Division said South Korea showed interest in funding a second medical infrastructure as the first one's progress has been "admirable". South Korea will finance the entire spending for the second hospital while Bangladesh will only pay the customs duties on the foreign funding.

With more than 4,000 beds comprising the BSMMU, super specialised hospitals one and two, and the Birdem General Hospital, Shahbagh will turn into a "hospital hub" in the next five years, according to the officials.

All applied departments

The 11-storey hospital, the second super specialised hospital, will have five or six core departments and sub-departments. There will also be research centres, skill labs, lecture theatres, libraries, and a Bangabandhu museum.

Zulfiqur Rahman Khan said the second hospital will mainly have the applied departments not available at the first one.

BSMMU Super Specialised Hospital One will have a 100-bed accident emergency facility, a liver, gallbladder and pancreas centre, organ transplant centre, cancer centre, maternal and child health care centre, dental centre, cardiovascular centre, geriatric centre, spinal cord centre, burn injury centre, a health screening centre and an emergency medical centre.

At the second super specialised hospital, Zulfiqur Rahman Khan said, there will be various departments and sub-departments of general surgery, gynaecology, surgical oncology, and ENT and an eye department. The hospital will also have a 50-60 bed dialysis centre with 10 beds dedicated for children.

Officials say the second hospital was initially planned to be a 20-storey building. However, since high-rise buildings near the old airport in Tejgaon are prohibited, the number of floors was later brought down to 11 – reducing the hospital patient beds to 750 from previously planned 1,000.

The hospital will have a 400-car parking facility on four basement levels. The first super specialised hospital will have a parking capacity of 250 vehicles on two basement levels.

There will be overhead or underground connecting corridors between the two hospitals for ease of patient access. The administration of each hospital will be different though they will be under the BSMMU umbrella.

Funding and construction phases

According to BSMMU sources, the Korean government's one-year feasibility study for construction of the hospital is in the final stages.

Subsequently, the construction budget will be drafted and there will be a loan agreement between Dhaka and Seoul. After formulation of the development project proposal (DPP), the project will go for approval of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec).

After the Ecnec go-ahead, a Korean contractor will be hired through a tender bid and construction will begin.

Zulfiqur Rahman Khan said it will take the whole of 2022 to complete all the initial processes and construction will likely begin in 2023 with a three-year deadline.

He said no existing medical facility in Bangladesh matches the standards of these two super specialised hospitals. However, Zulfiqur Rahman Khan did comment that maintaining standards would be challenging.