DGHS issues 17,625 health care licenses

The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has issued a total of 17,625 licenses to different healthcare service providers across the country till Sunday.

The Additional Director General (ADG) of the DGHS also announced the launch of drives against illegal health care service providers across the country from Monday.

“17,625 licenses have been issued to hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and blood banks to date. The number had never crossed 14,000 earlier,” said a top official from the Hospitals and Clinics Section of the DGHS.

This number of licenses (17,625) does not mean 17,625 health care institutes as a single institute can take as many as three different types of license each for hospitals or clinics, diagnostic centres and blood banks, the official explained.

It is assumed that 13,000 institutes have already got their licenses while some 2,000 are still running without licenses, according to the officials. After the drives conducted in May this year, more centres than those that were closed had applied for license renewal or new licenses.

Drive against illegal healthcare service providers begins

Announcing the new four-day-long raids on Monday the ADG (Administration) Ahmedul Kabir said that 1,641 health care institutes including hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres were shut down in their first campaign.

“Among the institutes, some 1,489 renewed a total of 2,930 licenses. As a result, the government has earned a total of Tk 25,18,52,867 in the last three months,” Prof Kabir added. Besides, 1,934 other centres are awaiting inspection for new licenses while some 2,905 centres are awaiting inspection for license renewal.

During the briefing, Dr Kabir said they would take stern action against those who have not applied for licenses in the last three months.