Universal access to quality reproductive health services
Population is an unbearable burden for Bangladesh and it happens to be the most densely populated country in the world. The area of Bangladesh is too small to support its vast population. As a result over-population creates a lot of critical problems. All the problems eventually lead to a general problem named poverty. Hence, it could be safely said that the poverty of our country is largely an aftermath of its population problem.
To raise awareness on this issues, Public Health Association of Bangladesh (PHAB) in collaboration with News Hour organised a roundtable discussion yesterday on "Sustainable Development Goal (SDG): Universal Access to Quality Reproductive Health Services in Bangladesh".
Dr. Abu Jamil Faisel, President of PHAB and Country Representative of EngenderHealth Bangladesh in his keynote presentation emphasised on quality of the healthcare services.
He stretched that health care facility for ensuring reproductive health may be available across the country due to the hard work of both the Government of Bangladesh and the NGOs, but the quality of these services can still be questioned and insufficient to address the respective targets of the SDGs.
Dr Faisel also said, "It is not all about building or setting up physical infrastructures, it is more about having well trained human resources who can take the challenge of ensuring reproductive health care and rights focusing family planning for the women and particularly the adolescent girls in line with the proposed SDG goals".
Experts and professionals in the sector highlighted that Bangladesh has reduced maternal mortality by 40% in the last decade. However, this progress and the underlying contributing factors, have not been spread evenly across the country attempts to address these differentials and understand the role of health care services in approaching inequalities of health services in Bangladesh which is now the major focus of SDGs.
Dr. Tapas Ranjan Das, Deputy Director (MCH), DGFP highlighted the importance of quality of care. He said, "Bangladesh needs to invest more in maternal and child health facilities to achieve the newly set targets those the government of Bangladesh has already committed. Well-designed programme needs to be implemented. We need to generate demand both in public and private sector."
Dr. Md. Khairul Islam, Ex Secretary General of Public Health Association of Bangladesh underscored that we need to understand how to measure the indicators of SDGs which are more cross cutting in comparison to MDGs. We need a holistic approach to achieve our goals and tragets.
Leading public health professionals of the sector were present in the roundtable discussion and said that without ensuring quality services, proper monitoring and strong human resource base, ensuring reproductive health services in Bangladesh in line with the SDG will be extremely difficult. Government with support from professional bodies should engage healthcare providers, field workers and policy makers should initiate dialogues to develop the next health sector programme within the framework of SDG.
The session was concluded by the discussion with a commitment from the participants to work further for the betterment of public health scenario of Bangladesh.