Prescription Point's statement offensive, defamatory: DGHS
The Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has denied the allegations made by the owners of Prescription Point Diagnostic Centre, calling it offensive and defamatory, and defended its decision to close the centre.
On 20 September, DGHS closed down the Prescription Point Diagnostic Centre in Dhaka's Banani as part of its ongoing drive against illegal clinics and diagnostic centres.
After the closure of Prescription Point, the owners held several press conferences to accuse the health minister's son of using DGHS to seize their building and institution.
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On Tuesday afternoon, the DGHS issued a press release signed by Dr Habibul Ahsan, director (Hospital and Clinic) of DGHS, explaining the closure of Prescription Point.
The press release said that DGHS closed Prescription Point on charges of operating a blood transfusion service without a license, using substandard and expired reagents, charging patients extra for laboratory tests, issuing medical examination certificates to foreign travellers without a medical examination centre license, operating an emergency department without a hospital license, operating a laboratory with unskilled and untrained staff, and deceiving patients with incorrect reports.
The Prescription Point authorities are violating the law by making offensive and defamatory statements about DGHS and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in various media. They are deliberately presenting false and fabricated statements to obstruct the ongoing activities and create confusion among the public, thereby tarnishing the image of the government, the release added.
DGHS has been conducting campaigns against illegal hospitals and diagnostic centres since 2017, but this is the first time any institution has held a press conference against the campaign.
In this campaign, DGHS conducted operations on a total of 2,083 hospitals and diagnostic centres, closed 164 of them, and sentenced 6 people to imprisonment. The institution also fined Tk49 lakh.
