Dhaka Medical gets seven days to resolve private ambulance parking dispute

Private ambulance operators at Dhaka Medical College Hospital have suspended their strike for seven days after talks with the hospital director, easing a disruption that left patients and their families scrambling for transport.

Badal Matbar, general secretary of the central committee of the Bangladesh Private Ambulance Owners Welfare Cooperative Association, confirmed the decision on Wednesday.

He said the association had called off the protest on humanitarian grounds, considering the severe hardship faced by patients and relatives travelling to Dhaka from distant areas.

The association’s leaders first met hospital director Brig Gen AKM Farhad Hossain to discuss a way out of the impasse.

After talks with the hospital authorities, members held their own meeting and agreed to suspend the strike.

Farhad said the hospital’s overall situation would be monitored over the next seven days before a decision was made on the next course of action.

He stressed that the hospital was the primary centre for patient care and that the authorities did not want medical services disrupted in any way.

The association launched the strike on Tuesday evening, demanding permanent parking for ambulances inside the hospital premises.

With drivers removing their vehicles from the grounds, patients and relatives struggled from Tuesday evening until Wednesday afternoon to find transport.

Some could not take bodies home or transfer critically injured and oxygen-dependent patients to other hospitals.

In desperation, some families used CNG auto-rickshaws to move critically ill patients.

Ambulance services and emergency transfers began returning to normal on Wednesday evening following the suspension.