Road crash: HC orders emergency services at all hospitals

Star Online Report

The High Court today directed the government to take necessary steps for providing emergency medical services to all critically injured persons at government and private hospitals across the country.
In response to a writ petition, the court ordered the government to submit a report on the progress of ensuring emergency medical services for traffic accident victims under the National Road Safety Strategic Action Plan 2014-2016 in three months.
Secretaries to the ministries of health, and road, transport and bridges were also directed to propose guidelines for the operation and management of emergency medical services, including the operation of an emergency reporting number, and to take measures to create public awareness of such services by way of dissemination through the press and electronic media, petitioners’ lawyer Sara Hossain and Deputy Attorney General Motaher Hossain Sazu told The Daily Star.
ALSO READ: Hearts of stone
The HC also issued a rule asking the government authorities concerned to explain in four weeks as to why the failure to ensure the provision by existing hospitals and clinics, whether governmental or private, of emergency medical services to critically injured persons should not be declared to illegal.
The HC bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Md Iqbal Kabir came up with the order rule after holding hearing on a writ petition filed seeking its orders on the government to ensure emergency medical services by hospitals, clinics and doctors across the country.  
The petition was filed by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust and Syed Saifuddin Kamal, a social entrepreneur, who as a ‘good samaritan’ had tried to ensure emergency medical services from local hospitals for a young man called Arif, a bus helper, who fell from a bus and was killed when the bus ran over him on the Airport Road near Banani Dhaka in last month.
They filed the petition based on a report published on The Daily Star on January 24 under a headline “Hearts of stone” that narrated how three prominent private hospitals in Dhaka have refused to provide with emergency medical service to critically injured Arif.
Secretaries to the ministries of health, road transport and bridges, director general of directorate of health services, the inspector general of police and the Bangladesh medical and dental council have been made respondents to the rule.

Padma bridge ‘conspirators’ to be tried: PM

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told parliament that the ‘conspirators’ of the Padma bridge project will be tried under the country’s existing laws. Star file photo

Star Online Report

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the parliament today that the ‘conspirators’ of the Padma bridge project will be tried under the country’s existing laws.
“The Anti-Corruption Commission has carried out an investigation against those who were engaged in a conspiracy to create obstacles towards implementing the Padma bridge project,” the PM said.
In a reply to lawmakers’ queries, the PM however said the allegations of corruption conspiracies in the Padma bridge project raised by the World Bank has been proved to be baseless through an investigation by the ACC.
While replying to a query by Jatiya Party lawmaker Kazi Firoz Rashid, the PM said her government has plans to extend gas pipelines to the southern parts of the country, phase by phase depending on the availability of gas and funds for the pipeline extension.
The premier added that there is a provision for the construction of a 30inch diameter gas pipeline within the Padma bridge project which has been financed by the Bangladesh government.
In reply to another query, the PM informed the House that the government has planned to equip 62,000 Urban Search And Rescue Volunteers (USARV) for successful rescue operations after any natural calamities, such as earthquakes.
In another reply, the PM also said the government has already trained 30,000 of the 62,000 volunteers.
There will be three USARV teams operating in Dhaka division and one each in Chittagong, Sylhet, Barisal, Khulna, Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions, she also said.
The number of Fire Service and Civil Defence stations in the country will be increased from 310 to 552 and the workforce will be doubled, the PM added. 

US intel warns of expansion of terror groups in Bangladesh

Italian citizen Cesare Tavella (right) and Japanese national Kunio Hoshi (left) were slain in Dhaka and Rangpur respectively on September 28 and October 3 last year.

AP, Washington

The US intelligence chief has said efforts by Bangladesh's prime minister to undermine the political opposition will probably provide openings for transnational terrorist groups to expand their presence in the South Asian country.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper questioned yesterday Bangladesh's public insistence that the killings of foreigners were the work of the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami and are intended to discredit the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
In written testimony to a Senate hearing on worldwide threats, Clapper noted the claims of responsibility from the Islamic State group for 11 high profile attacks on foreigners and religious minorities, and claims from the Ansarullah Bangla Team and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) for killing at least 11 progressive writers and bloggers in Bangladesh since 2013.
Bangladesh is a Muslim country with traditions of secularism and tolerance but it has become increasingly troubled by extremist violence.
The government has denied that the Islamic State group has a presence in the country, and has accused domestic Islamist groups and political opponents for the violence.
Bangladesh has been in political ferment since the run-up to January 2014 elections that were boycotted by opposition parties in the BNP-led political alliance, and over war crimes prosecutions brought against Jamaat leaders over alleged involvement in atrocities during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence.