Affordable healthcare for rural people urged
Affordable healthcare facilities should be delivered at rural people's doorsteps by creating skilled healthcare providers through community paramedic courses, said discussants at a roundtable yesterday.
The roundtable, “Need of skilled service providers in health sector and community paramedics: A new initiativeâ€, was organised by Prothom Alo, supported by TARSAN project of Swisscontact, in the daily's office in the capital.
Government doctors do not attend their village offices, said the health ministry Senior Secretary Md Humayun Kabir, adding that skilled paramedics could meet the huge demand for primary healthcare facilities in rural areas.
He expressed hope that 13,000 trained paramedics would be made available by 2015.
National Prof Dr MR Khan said providing healthcare was social welfare work, not business and that trainers must be well-equipped to produce skilled paramedics.
The ministry formed a policy on a two-year training course for paramedics in 2009 to meet the crisis at the grassroots, said Anisul Awal, director of training at National Institute of Population Research and Training.
Bangladesh Nursing Council Registrar Suraiya Begum said, “We must ensure that the trained paramedics return to villages after training.â€
Referring to a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics data, Prothom Alo Associate Editor Abdul Qayyum said Bangladeshis mainly suffer from fever, diarrhoea, and other less severe diseases.
He opined that paramedics, on receiving proper training, were enough to treat these ailments.
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