The ‘ghost hospital’ of Dhamrai: A 40-year-old unfinished dream
Despite its enormous scale, not a single patient has ever received treatment at the hospital, the construction of which began in 1985. No doctor has ever opened a consultation chamber. And no surgery has ever been performed inside its walls
Standing on the edge of Dhaka's Dhamrai upazila, a grand concrete complex rises unexpectedly from the crop fields. Unexpectedly, because an establishment this vast looks out of place in this rural landscape.
From a distance, its silhouette resembles an institution that should be bustling with ambulances, doctors, and anxious families waiting outside emergency wards. Instead, for decades, silence has reigned as it remains completely sealed, abandoned.
The four-storey buildings stand behind rusted gates wrapped in vines. Walls are cracked, and thick creepers crawl all over. Moss stains the concrete green, while trees have taken root in places where hospital gardens were perhaps once planned. Dense vegetation has also engulfed the mosque complex and spaces outside the main hospital complex.
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The broad yard has disappeared beneath wild shrubs, and narrow footpaths carved by curious visitors snake through what has become an accidental forest.
Locals have long stopped calling it a hospital. Instead, they refer to it as a "hospital for ghosts".
Spread across nearly 16 acres between Rajapur and Paikpara villages of Chauhat Union, the abandoned Yunus Khan Cancer Medical College Hospital has become one of Bangladesh's largest unfinished healthcare projects.
The complex contains not only a multi-storey hospital building, but also residential quarters for doctors, accommodation for medical students, the aforementioned mosque, a pond, and several auxiliary buildings.
Yet despite its enormous scale, not a single patient has ever received treatment here. No doctor has ever opened a consultation chamber. No surgery has ever been performed inside its walls.
Inside the buildings, dust blankets the floors where hospital beds were supposed to stand. Corridors remain eerily empty, their unfinished walls exposing decades-old plaster. Rainwater seeps through broken windows. The staircases still lead to wards that never became wards at all.
Walking through the complex feels less like visiting an abandoned building than stumbling upon a forgotten ambition.
From the rooftop, the view stretches across miles of farmland. Had the project reached completion, thousands of residents from Dhamrai, Tangail, Manikganj, and Gazipur could have found advanced medical care much closer to home. However, the enormous structure has spent nearly four decades ageing in isolation.
Locals say drug addicts regularly gather inside. Others warn of snakes hiding beneath the dense vegetation. Few people venture beyond the entrance after sunset.
Mamun, the caretaker who has watched over the whole complex for the past eight years, says the transformation has accelerated in recent years.
"It wasn't this covered in vegetation when I first arrived," he recalls while unlocking one of the entrances. "When the owner was alive, work was still going on. After he passed away, everything just stopped."
According to him, construction had begun during the presidency of Hussain Mohammad Ershad and continued while the owner remained personally involved.
But after his death, the momentum vanished. The machinery fell silent, workers went away and the unfinished hospital slowly surrendered itself to time.
Built in a father's memory
The project was initiated by a son watching his father losing the battle against cancer and making a promise that would eventually reshape an entire landscape.
In the early 1980s, Yunus Khan, the patriarch of a prominent business family from Chauhat village, was diagnosed with cancer. His son, industrialist Khan Mohammad Iqbal, took him abroad several times for treatment, travelling from one country to another in the hope that modern medicine could prolong his father's life. It could not.
During those difficult months, Yunus Khan is said to have expressed one final wish: People in Bangladesh should not have to leave the country or spend fortunes to receive cancer treatment. According to people associated with the family, that wish stayed with Iqbal long after his father's death.
Determined to fulfil it, Iqbal embarked on an extraordinarily ambitious private healthcare project. Construction of the Yunus Khan Cancer Medical College Hospital began in 1985 on nearly 16 acres of family-owned land.
The plan extended far beyond a conventional hospital. Alongside the main medical complex, the blueprint included accommodation for doctors, hostels for medical students, a mosque, staff quarters, a pond, and supporting facilities. According to the Iqbal Ahmed Foundation, the current custodian of the site, nearly Tk300 crore was invested in the project over the years.
Ershad Mia, a local, says he was one of the construction workers who arrived on the site roughly 25 years ago. He spent about six years carrying out masonry and plastering work on parts of the complex.
Although he did not witness the earliest stages of construction, he remembers that the project was moving ahead quickly.
One instruction, however, has remained etched in his memory for more than two decades. "We were told that people would come from abroad," Ershad recalls. "They wanted the outside to look complete. We worked mainly on the exterior plastering. Inside, much of the brickwork had already been done, but there was no need to finish everything."
Whether those foreign visitors ever arrived, he cannot say.
Ershad also remembers constructing a circular concrete platform near the entrance of the complex.
"We were told helicopters would land there," he says with a faint smile, pointing towards the weathered structure that still survives beside the main road.
Time has blurred many of Ershad's memories. He cannot recall who exactly supervised the work or why construction eventually slowed.
According to Morshed Chowdhury, manager of Iqbal Ahmed Foundation, the project lost its driving force after the death of Khan Mohammad Iqbal in 2017. "After the death of the industrialist, the entire project stopped," he says. "However, if the government or any individual comes forward to take the initiative, the owners are willing to cooperate."
An unfinished promise
Today, the complex stands as both an architectural curiosity and an unfinished promise. For the people living around Chauhat union, the abandoned hospital is more than a curiosity hidden behind overgrown trees. It is a reminder of what could have been.
Every day, buses carrying patients leave Dhamrai for Dhaka, many travelling to the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital or other specialised facilities in the capital. Families often spend hours on the road, bearing the financial burden of treatment alongside transportation and accommodation costs. Looking at the sprawling complex that has stood empty for decades, many residents cannot help but wonder how different life could have been had its wards ever opened.
"It could have served people from Dhaka, Manikganj, Tangail and Gazipur," says Rahima Mima, a local resident and a medical student. "Such a large healthcare facility would have benefited thousands of people."
Others express their disappointment more bluntly.
"The founder wanted to serve local people," says resident Rajon Ahmed. "But that dream was never realised. The government should take steps so this infrastructure can finally be put to use."
Suman Islam, another local, says the complex has gradually become part of the landscape, not because it serves the community, but because people have become accustomed to seeing it decay.
But even after decades of neglect, the buildings remain structurally imposing. The main hospital block still dominates the compound. Residential quarters stand largely intact. A mosque continues to overlook the premises, while the pond behind the complex reflects buildings that never fulfilled the purpose for which they were designed.
Although years of exposure have damaged sections of the infrastructure, much of the campus remains standing. It is an indication of how substantial the original investment was.
The question, then, is no longer why the project failed. It is whether it still deserves a second life.
Officials say conversations have already begun.
Md Al Mamun, the Upazila Nirbahi Officer of Dhamrai, said, "We have informed the deputy commissioner's office and the Ministry of Health so that the hospital can be made operational."
The owners have also indicated their willingness to cooperate if the government or another organisation comes forward to revive the project.
The hospital's location places it within reach of four districts. Its campus already contains much of the physical infrastructure that any large medical institution would require.
Bringing it back to life would demand substantial investment, structural assessments and years of work, but the alternative is to allow one of Bangladesh's largest private healthcare dreams to continue disappearing beneath vines and moss.
