Jamalpur Medical College's 500-bed hospital: main building construction not started even after seven years

Jamalpur Medical College's 500-bed hospital was supposed to open in June 2019. But even after seven years, construction of the main building has not begun, and the medical college is operating without its own hospital.

This is disrupting students' practical education and internships. Patients from Jamalpur, meanwhile, have to travel to Mymensingh and Dhaka for better treatment.

According to the district Public Works Department and college sources, work on the Jamalpur Medical College and Hospital and Nursing College project began in June 2016 in the Monirajpur area of Jamalpur town. The Jamalpur Public Works Department is implementing the project.

Although the target was to finish the work by June 2019, the deadline was extended in three phases to June 2023. A proposal has since been made to extend it in two more phases to December 2026. In the project, costing about Tk 280 crore, construction of the 500-bed hospital building has still not begun.

On the ground, the project area has various structures including an academic building, an intern doctors' dormitory, doctors' housing, a staff nurse dormitory, a teaching morgue, a nursing college building and a hostel. Most of those structures, however, are lying unused.

Although the students' residential hall is open, students have to go about two kilometres from there to the old tin-shed building of the temporary campus for classes. Construction has still not begun on the land designated for the hospital.

Meanwhile, the 250-bed Jamalpur General Hospital is admitting several times more patients than its capacity. Because of the bed shortage, many patients are receiving treatment on mats spread on floors and verandas, and medical college students also have to do their practical education and internships at this hospital.

Student Sadia Afrin said teaching has still not started at their permanent campus, so they have to attend classes in the old, dilapidated tin-shed building about two kilometres from the residential hall, and that without their own hospital they face various limitations in practical education and internships.

Student Majedul Hasan said that without their own hospital they have to do internships at the General Hospital, where they struggle to provide care amid excessive patient pressure and space shortages. He demanded that the hospital building be built quickly and the medical college's full activities launched.

Jamalpur Medical College Principal Dr Md. Abul Kalam Azad said the process of supplying the college's necessary furniture, laboratory equipment and medical instruments is under way, and once that work is done it will be possible to start the college's activities on its own campus. He said that although other work on the project is almost finished, construction of the 500-bed hospital building has still not begun.

Jamalpur Public Works Department Executive Engineer Md. Roknuzzaman said the tender process for building the hospital building is under way at the ministry and is expected to be invited within a short time. He said that if the project period ends, steps will be taken to extend it as needed.