The government has decided to bring urban health care out of its fragmented arrangements and into the mainstream of the national health system, given how fast the country is urbanising. State Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr M A Muhit said so as chief guest at a national consultation on a 'sustainable SRHR ecosystem' organised by the CSO Forum at the CIRDAP auditorium in Dhaka on Tuesday, Dainik Bangla reports.
Less than 10 percent of Bangladeshis lived in towns just after independence, the state minister said; the share has now reached 30 percent, and by 2050 half the population will live in cities. A lasting institutional framework led jointly by the Directorate General of Health Services and the Directorate General of Family Planning is therefore being prepared to replace stopgap arrangements run by city corporations, municipalities and NGOs.
To reach the grassroots, 100,000 new workers are to be recruited alongside the existing 40,000 health workers. These 'community health and wellbeing' workers will be trained and equipped with modern diagnostic devices and AI-based digital apps.
Evening clinics are planned for low-income working people in cities, and ward-based health units, one for every 50,000 to 100,000 people, to serve slum dwellers, the floating population and disabled women and children. The state minister urged that the development project proposal (DPP) for the framework, designed for the next two to three decades, be finalised quickly.
The meeting was moderated by Dr Sayed Rubayet, country director of Ipas Bangladesh and convener of the CSO Forum, and addressed by A K M Benjamin Riazi, secretary of the Health Education and Family Welfare Division, and Zeenat Rehana, director general of the Directorate General of Family Planning.
Source: Dainik Bangla
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