PM says healthcare has not yet improved much
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina unveils the plaque of department of Public Health and Informatics of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University at her office in the city yesterday. Photo: PMO
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the country's overall healthcare scenario has not improved to an expected level despite a number of government initiatives. "We have taken enormous steps to provide healthcare facilities to mass people. But the overall healthcare scenario has not achieved expected advancement." Hasina said this to the inaugural ceremony of the department of Public Health and Informatics of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) at her office. Rockefeller Foundation, the USA has funded the establishment of the new department at BSMMU. The prime minister said the sordid situation in the health sector was created due to lack of necessary information about diseases and workforce. Public health and informatics is an area that can help process and preserve data, provide data for research, do disease surveillance, and notify outbreaks of diseases, she added. Hasina also described the development of health information system as being in an embryonic stage. "Even big hospitals and treatment centres, both public and private, lack any system for collection, storage, retrieval, and reporting of important healthcare information." She mentioned that there is no organised system at any level of healthcare infrastructure for systematically collecting, analysing, and reporting health related information. Vital statistics like birth and death records, infectious disease reporting, and child immunisation records that are mandatory requirements are rarely preserved, she said. Higher education in public health and informatics at BSMMU, hoped Hasina, would help overcome the existing poor status of health related data and statistics in the country. Calling for more medical research, she urged the physicians to forge ways of providing low cost treatment for the patients. She assured all-out government support to this end. The prime minister said initiatives have been taken to turn BSMMU into a centre of excellence to strengthen the research activities. A project involving Tk 484 crore has been undertaken, and the university has been given 12 bighas of land for its expansion. Terming healthcare a constitutional right of every citizen, Hasina said the government has undertaken programmes to reach health services to the doorsteps of mass people. The initiatives include operating of community clinics, recruitment of 4,000 doctors and 13,500 health providers, and establishment of 3,780 health and family welfare centres. Besides, she said, district and upazila hospitals have been equipped with web cameras and internet facilities. BSMMU Vice Chancellor Prof Pran Gopal Dutta presided over the inaugural function addressed, among others, by Health Minister Prof AFM Ruhul Haq, Prime Minister Adviser Prof Sayed Modasser Ali, and Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin.
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