Health Tech Instt opens in Barisal 21 months after construction

The Health Technology Institute was opened on Saturday in the Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital compound in the city aiming to mitigate the acute crisis of health technologists in the region.

Barisal city mayor Shawkat Hossain Hiron inaugurated the institute in the morning, twenty-one months after the completion of its construction.

Classes in 2011-12 session under a three-year course would start in the institute in July.

Barisal district civil surgeon Dr Anil Chandra Datta, also the acting principal of the institute, presided over the inaugural ceremony.

Dr Abdur Rashid, director SBMCH, Dr Maksumul Huq, acting principal of SBMC, Syed Tawfiquddin Ahmed, commissioner Barisal metropolitan police, ASM Arifur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Barisal, and other government officials attended the ceremony.

The SBMCH director said there is only one-fourth of the required number of trained and certified health technologists in the country.

The largest health technology institute of the country in Dhaka failed to fulfil the increasing demand of technologists as medical care and service centres in both the public and private sectors are rapidly increasing, he said.

The government decided to build five health technology institutes in five divisional headquarters to meet the demand, he added.

The construction of the institute started in April 2007 on three acres of land in the Barisal SBMCH compound and was completed within the scheduled period of 30 months in September 2009 at a cost of about Tk 16.2 core.

Manpower shortage delayed the opening of the HTI in due time, the SBMCH director informed.

The HTI complex includes six buildings — academic, male and female hostels, officers' and staff quarters and the principal's quarter — with the boundary wall surrounding the campus.

There are adequate equipment and laboratory facilities for practical training of the students, said Zakia Sultana, engineer-in-charge of the site and the construction management and maintenance unit of health directorate.

Barisal civil surgeon said he was asked by health directorate to take the charge of principal of HTI in addition to his duty as CS after other professionals at SBMCH and SBMC denied to take the charge as extra duty until sufficient manpower was not be provided for the institute.

The authorities, however, assured of deputising manpower from SBMCH and SBMC on temporary basis within a short time to start the course, he informed.

A total of 327 students, including fifty in each of the five departments —Radiology, Physiotherapy, Dental, Pharmacy and Pathology, 20 students in the Sanitary Instructor Training course, 5 under the quota of freedom fighters and 2 under indigenous people quota would be admitted in the institute within June 30.

Source : New Age

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