26 years without X-ray at Mymensingh’s only government chest clinic

“It is painful that the clinic is yet to be equipped with modern facilities for TB treatment,” said Md Yasin, 30, a patient from Patgodam in Mymensingh city.

For Yasin and hundreds of others who rely on the Chest Disease Clinic, the absence of an X-ray machine means having to travel elsewhere for an essential diagnostic test, adding to the burden on patients, particularly those from poor families.

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The clinic is the only government facility in Mymensingh division dedicated to treating tuberculosis (TB), serving patients not only from the city but also from Sherpur, Netrokona, Tangail, Kishoreganj, Jamalpur and Gazipur. Around 30 to 40 people come to the clinic each day for TB tests.

Yet the clinic has had no functioning X-ray machine for 26 years, despite it being essential for diagnosing not only TB but also other chest diseases.

An X-ray unit was installed when the clinic opened in 1962 and served patients for nearly four decades, kept running through repeated repairs, before it finally broke down beyond repair in 2000. It has never been replaced since.

In the years since, patients needing an X-ray have had two options, neither of them easy. Some pay out of pocket at private diagnostic centres, a cost that falls hardest on poor families who make up the bulk of the clinic's patients.

Others use a free X-ray facility the clinic authority has arranged at a BRAC healthcare centre in the city's Mashkanda area, some three kilometres away. Many patients, however, are not even aware the facility exists.

"It would be better if the tests are available at the clinic," Yasin said adding that travelling elsewhere for essential examinations was an added hardship for patients.

Other patients and their attendants echoed his concerns.

Advocate Nazrul Islam Chunnu, president of the Human Rights Alliance's Mymensingh chapter, said the clinic's condition has fallen well short of what the region needs.

"When the clinic needs to be upgraded as a hospital, unfortunately it has been running without minimum healthcare facilities for over two decades," he said.

The clinic currently conducts only cough (sputum) examinations on site. Patients needing further tests including blood work, CT scans and FNAC (Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology) are referred to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital.

The scale of the clinic's caseload underlines what is at stake. From 2024 to June this year, more than 3,000 patients were tested for TB via other facilities at the clinic, of whom 173 tested positive, according to Dr Mohammad Nasir Uddin, junior consultant at the clinic.

TB cases are rising, he said, with the industrial zone in Bhaluka showing a particularly high prevalence.

Beyond direct patient care, the clinic also serves as a referral centre for External Quality Assessment, a role that involves verifying the accuracy of TB testing at 41 peripheral laboratories across Mymensingh, Sherpur, Gazipur and Manikganj.

There are signs of movement after years of inaction. Nasir Uddin said a room to house a new X-ray machine has recently been completed at the clinic, and an application for a machine has been submitted.

Civil surgeon Dr Mohammad Fakhrul Hasan Chowdhury said a formal requirement for portable X-ray machines was sent to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on September 22.

"If the X-ray machines are received, one will be installed at the clinic on a priority basis," he said.

"To render better services to patients, arrangements for all other TB tests would be available at the clinic within the shortest possible time."