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BangladeshNationalist Party-BNP
BNP Chairman and Prime Minister Mr Tarique Rahman today directed the authorities concerned to ensure improved and easier access to healthcare services for marginalized people and asked doctors to be more sincere in providing treatment to patients.
He also directed stricter action against negligence in duty and instructed the authorities to expand dialysis services and strengthen healthcare infrastructure across the country.
The Prime Minister made the directives at a meeting with officials of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at the Secretariat this afternoon, said PM’s Deputy Press Secretary Md. Suzauddhowla (Sujon Mahmud).
It was the first time that a Prime Minister visited the ministry's auditorium to hold such a meeting.
At the outset of the meeting, the Prime Minister asked the minister, state minister, secretary and other senior officials to brief him on the achievements made in the health sector during the five months since the present government assumed office.
The officials informed him that the country's health sector had been left in a fragile state by previous governments, making quality healthcare increasingly difficult for marginalized people to access, and said the present administration had been working tirelessly to improve the situation.
Referring to allegations frequently raised in the media and on social media that patients at the upazila level often fail to receive satisfactory treatment despite the presence of doctors, the Prime Minister directed the authorities to take necessary measures, including disciplinary action where negligence in duty is found.
The premier said, “We must ensure healthcare becomes easily accessible for people in villages by any means. Satisfactory medical treatment and an adequate supply of medicines must be ensured for them.
“Everyone should be able to receive treatment at government hospitals easily and without suffering. They should not have to go elsewhere for treatment; government hospitals must become their most trusted destination,” he said.
The Prime Minister also stressed the need to improve treatment facilities for kidney patients.
He said 10-bed dialysis centres at district hospitals would be expanded to 50 beds, while dialysis centres would be established at all upazila levels across the country in phases over the next three years.
He directed the authorities concerned to develop the required skilled manpower and ensure adequate logistical support for the expansion programme.
The meeting also discussed the government's initiative to upgrade upazila health complexes from 51 to 101 beds, including the required manpower and infrastructure. Engineers from the Public Works Department presented detailed infrastructure designs and implementation plans.
Health Minister, State Minister for Health, senior officials of the ministry, and directors and top officials of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh Medical University and several other hospitals in the capital attended the meeting.
