Patients at Dhaka Medical College Hospital are allocated BDT 149 a day for four meals after VAT, an amount patients and their relatives say results in food that is often inedible and leaves them having to buy meals from outside.
The complaints centre on lunch and dinner. Patients say the meals lack nutrition and variety, with the curries drawing the strongest criticism and the rice often poorly prepared.
The hospital’s total food allocation is BDT 175 per patient for four daily meals, including 15 percent VAT. After VAT, the effective allocation is BDT 149.
Of the BDT 175 allocation, BDT 53.67 is budgeted for breakfast, BDT 52.79 for lunch, BDT 30.87 for an afternoon snack and BDT 37.67 for dinner, according to hospital sources.
“If the contractor makes even 10 percent profit, that amount falls to around BDT 135,” the hospital’s director, Brigadier General Md Asaduzzaman, said. “At current market prices, this amount is genuinely inadequate for what is needed. Requests have been made to the ministry to increase the allocation.”
Abid Ahmed, who has spent 18 days at the hospital with a patient awaiting surgery, said the curry was “very poor and not fit to eat”.
He added: “If I buy food from outside, the cost is high, so the rice has to be eaten out of necessity. I have to buy the curry from outside.” He said breakfast was satisfactory.
Another patient’s relative said the quality of lunch and dinner was “very low”. “There’s water on the rice. There’s nothing in the curry except turmeric and salt. Those responsible don’t seem to supervise it properly,” he said.
Health ministry data shows that the daily food allocation was raised from BDT 125 to BDT 175 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when patients were given between 53 and 65 grams of protein a day. Officials said that figure has since fallen to about 40 to 45 grams.
Nutrition experts said the decline could affect patients’ recovery. Nazma Shaheen, a professor at Dhaka University’s Institute of Food and Nutrition Science, said food was as important as medicine for patients.
“Patients can’t be cured with medicine alone. Different patients need different diets according to their physical condition. A general diet can’t meet every patient’s needs. For a person under treatment, the required calories, protein, vitamins and minerals should be provided through food,” she said.
Shaheen stressed that nutritionists must be involved in testing food quality and nutritional value and in determining menus. If prescribed nutritional requirements are not met, patients are deprived and may take longer to recover, she added.
The hospital currently lacks enough nutritionists to oversee quality control. Asaduzzaman said the hospital previously had one nutritionist, who was transferred to another hospital, and that a case concerning the matter is pending. He said steps had been taken to recruit more nutritionists soon.
Md Tajuddin Sikder, a professor in Jahangirnagar University’s public health informatics department, said hospitals should follow World Health Organization guidelines on patients’ food. “If food quality is below the prescribed guideline, it needs to be raised to a specific standard,” he said.
Experts noted that raising the allocation alone would not guarantee quality. The quality of raw ingredients, cooking methods, serving practices, nutritional content and patient-specific diets must all be monitored regularly, they said. Food should also be tested to confirm that it contains the prescribed amounts of protein and other nutrients.
Asked about complaints from patients and relatives, Asaduzzaman said: “Due to price rises and ancillary matters, there may be some complaints about food quality. But we always sincerely try to ensure good-quality food from the contractor.”