Praava Health to resume services today

Praava Health, a network of Family Health Centres, will resume its all operation from today after 22-day suspension.

Praava Health has informed that it will conduct all the activities as per the previous rules from Tuesday after being suspended from operation on 2 August.

"Praava Health has always followed and will always follow the highest standards of clinical quality and international protocols. Praava has at all times focused on compliance with the guidelines and policy directives issued by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and international standards of clinical quality. We are grateful for the proactive guidance provided by DGHS," said a facebook post

Silvana Q Sinha, chief executive of the organisation, said, "We have amended the issues according to the direction of DGHS. The DGHS team also visited the organisation. The DGHS issued a letter to resume the activities of the organisation as everything is okay. All our activities are starting on Tuesday. We have already informed our customers through SMS."

The letter, signed by Dr Farid Hossain Mia, director (hospitals and clinics) of the DGHS, said "The organisation's activities were temporarily suspended due to some irregularities. Subsequently, in the light of the investigation report and in view of rectifying the irregularities, immediately setting up a biosafety cabinet in the PCR room, and setting up a passbox to give samples from the mastermix room to the PCR room, Praava Health has been allowed to resume its activities."

Dr Farid Hossain Mia said that Praava Health can reopen as they have rectified all the reasons for which it was closed.

Earlier on 2 August, the DGHS ordered the suspension of all activities of Praava Health, citing a number of irregularities.

There were allegations that despite having rules to have separate donning and doffing rooms at coronavirus sample collection booths, Praava Health was using the same room.

The RT-PCR test report requires the signature of a physician registered with BMDC, but it is not included in any of the reports provided by Praava Health.

Although the government set a maximum of Tk 2,500 for testing coronavirus for expatriate travelers, the company was charging an additional Tk150 in the name of registration fee.

Praava Health claims on its website that the World Health Organization is their "partner". When the DGHS asked about this, Praava Health could not provide an explanation. Instead, they changed the term to "our corporate clients".