Cabinet okays community clinic health bill

The cabinet on Monday approved the “Community Clinic Health Assistance Trust Bill, 2018” for ensuring participation of the rural people in the healthcare services and collecting donation for trust fund to run the country’s community clinics.

The approval came from the cabinet meeting held with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair at her office.

After the meeting, Secretary (Coordination and Reform) at the Cabinet Division NM Ziaul Alam briefed reporters at the secretariat.

He said the Cabinet gave the final approval to the bill on condition of bringing some changes to the draft bill.

“The goals of the Community Clinic Trust Assistance Bill is to ensure the participation of the people in coordinated healthcare services to rural people, to provide the healthcare services by using funds of the trust, and collect necessary social assistances and donation from individuals and organisations for providing the health services,” he said.

Besides, an effective referral system will be established between the community clinics and other hospitals including union-level health sub-centres, upazila health complexes, district-level hospitals, specialised hospitals and medical college hospitals, the secretary said.

According to the proposed law, there will be an advisory council of the trust, headed by the prime minister, and a 14-member board to be headed by managing director to regulate the trust. An additional secretary-level official will be the managing director of the board.

Ziaul Alam said there are now 13,861 community clinics across the country and the government has a plan to set up 1,029 more community clinics.