Private ambulance owners, who went on strike at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) demanding a designated parking area there, have suspended their strike for seven days.
Badal Madbor, general secretary of the Bangladesh Private Ambulance Owners’ Welfare Cooperatives Society, confirmed the decision on Wednesday evening.
“We have given the hospital authorities seven days to meet our demand. If they fail to implement the demand within this period, we will announce further programmes,” he said.
Earlier, the ambulance owners began the strike on Tuesday morning, demanding a permanent parking facility for private ambulances within the hospital premises.
The strike caused immense suffering for patients and their relatives, who struggled to find ambulances to take critically ill patients to other hospitals or transport bodies home.
Some families were forced to carry the bodies of their loved ones in CNG-run auto-rickshaws or covered vans.
Since Wednesday morning, relatives of patients were seen waiting for ambulances outside the hospital’s emergency department, near both the old and new buildings, and the outpatient department.
Relatives of some patients alleged that they did not receive the necessary assistance even after contacting the national emergency service 999.
Badal Madbor earlier said around 120 to 130 ambulances usually serve nearly 4,000 patients at the DMCH.
However, police often fine or impound ambulances that are parked on nearby streets due to the lack of a designated parking area, he said.
The organisation’s general secretary said the ambulance owners previously renovated a space beside the hospital’s old building at their own expense but were later forced to leave the area.
They are willing to pay the government but want a designated place to park their vehicles, he added.
DMCH Director Brigadier General AKM Farhad Hossain, however, said there is no provision for parking private ambulances on government premises.
He said ambulance owners are not barred from operating their businesses but have to keep their vehicles outside the hospital premises.
Farhad said the officer-in-charge of Shahbagh Police Station has been assigned to oversee the situation.
He also said discussions were held with higher authorities about increasing the number of ambulances serving patients at the DMCH.