Bangladesh's health ministry has taken responsibility for the health care of the country's roughly 60 million city dwellers. Urban health centres will keep running under the existing partnership arrangement for the next six months, and in that time a sustainable, affordable and multi-sector urban health model will be finalised around what city residents need.
State Minister for Health Dr M A Muhit announced this on Wednesday at a discussion titled 'Urban health: increasing multi-sector engagement' at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon hotel in Dhaka. The Bangladesh Urban Health Network (BUHN) and Eminence organised it with support from the Swedish embassy and UNICEF.
The state minister said rural people are served by a defined network built around upazila health complexes, but the ministry had no direct, formal responsibility for the health of the large urban population. To fill that gap the government took a final decision to take charge of urban health. So that services are not interrupted, policy and financial approval has been given to keep the old arrangement until the centres pass fully into government management. The urban health project has also been provisionally included at the Planning Commission.
Urban health care, he said, cannot be limited to hospitals and medicines: housing, safe water, sanitation, jobs, mental health and the prevention of non-communicable diseases all bear on city dwellers' health. The upazila model should not be copied blindly in the cities; planning must start from people's real needs. He stressed an electronic health card and an effective referral network between public and private providers.
On the budget, he said the health sector had received its largest allocation in the country's history this year, and there was a clear political commitment to give health 5 percent of the national budget within five years. He urged public-health experts, researchers and development partners to help draw up a practical, cost-effective action plan quickly.
Other speakers included Prof Dr Harun Al Rashid, president of the Doctors Association of Bangladesh; Dr Md Enamul Haque, director general of the Health Economics Unit; Prof Dr Nasrin Sultana, director of NIPSOM; Imadul Haque, health manager at UNICEF Bangladesh; Dewan Emdadul Haque of the World Health Organization; Wamek Raza of the World Bank; and Kazi Saifuddin Bennoor, director of the Bangladesh Medical Research Council.
Source: Samakal
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