GlaxoSmithKline, CARE celebrate achievements

GlaxoSmithKline and CARE yesterday celebrated and showcased their achievements in creating health impacts in Bangladesh.

The health and family welfare ministry and Marks & Spencer, partners of the two entities, also joined the event titled “Partnership for Strengthening Health Care System in Bangladesh” at the Radisson hotel in Dhaka.

GSK Bangladesh since 2012 have been reinvesting 20 percent of its profits for strengthening the country’s healthcare infrastructure, reaching out to almost three million beneficiaries through several partnership initiatives, it said in a statement yesterday.

GSK and its partners focused on addressing unmet health needs of underprivileged communities focusing on the shortage of frontline health workers.

These were through the Community Health Worker Initiative, the Emergency Response Refugee Influx in Cox Bazar, and through a tripartite partnership with M&S – the Health ALOW+ Programme in the readymade garment industry.

“At GSK we are very proud to be able to be partnering through our programmes in increasing access to quality health care and collaborate with the Government of Bangladesh,” said Prashant Pandey, managing director of GSK Bangladesh.

“…to design and implement a sustainable solution, by developing 300 Skilled Health Entrepreneurs and 3,000 community health workers at the hard to reach haor areas of Sunamaganj,” he said.

Other efforts were to “empower RMG workers with health awareness through (Health Access and Linkage Opportunities for Workers Plus (Halow Plus) initiative and run health camps for the Myanmar refugees in Ukhiya”, he added.

Rubana Huq, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association; Robert Chatterton Dickson, British high commissioner to Bangladesh; Shwapna Bhowmick, country manager at Marks and Spencer, and Zia Choudhury, country director at CARE Bangladesh, were present.