All regular healthcare services at the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital in Dhaka city were resumed on Saturday morning after remaining suspended for 17 days following a violent clash.
Tension, however, hung in the air of the facility as the authorities said the physicians and nurses were still worried about their safety.
Treatment at the 250-bed public hospital, located in Dhaka鈥檚 Agargaon, had remained held up since May 28 when its doctors, nurses and other staff, outpatients and the July uprising injured taking treatment at the hospital engaged in a fierce clash.
The eye hospital gradually resumed its patient services from June 4. On that day its emergency services restarted, while outpatient services resumed on June 12.
Assistant director of the hospital Rezwanur Rahman Sohel said that on Saturday, the first day of full service resumption, some 1,450 outpatients received treatment and 43 patients took admission to the hospital.
He said that the hospital鈥檚 physicians, nurses and other staff were still anxious about their security.
鈥極n the first day of the opening, massive presence of the police and personnel from other law and order agencies was arranged on the hospital premises since it鈥檚 not a normal situation,鈥� he said.
Other hospital staff said that five July injured victims who went home during Eid holiday tried to enter the hospital in the morning on Saturday, but were resisted by the security personnel.
On Saturday, four July injured were admitted to the hospital, while another one was staying in the hospital without admission.
The suspension of treatment at the largest public eye hospital for over two weeks brought immense suffering to hundreds of eye patients who seek affordable treatment at the facility. After service suspension on May 28, several hundred inpatients returned home in the middle of their treatment, or were compelled to turn to expensive private facilities.
On June 12 when the outpatient department reopened, it attended to 580 patients.
Earlier, hospital authorities alleged that some of the injured in July uprising that overthrew the authoritarian Awami League regime in August last year, refused to leave the facility even after they were discharged after treatment. Refuting the hospital authority鈥檚 statement, July victims said that they were not receiving sufficient medical services at the hospital.
The conflict finally erupted in a clash on May 28 involving the doctors, nurses, general outpatients and the July injured. At the time the hospital had 54 uprising injured staying in its inpatient department.
Following the clash that left around 21 injured, the government formed an expert committee that recommended that after the end of treatment, the authorities should issue discharge papers to the July uprising inpatients and ask them to leave.
The May 28 clash broke out after the hospital staff, doctors and nurses began a work stoppage on the day, demanding their security, a day after protesters laid siege to NIOH then director Khair Ahmed Choudhury following suicide attempts by four July uprising injured on May 25.
