Grameen teams up with GE Healthcare

Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus speaks at a press conference in Dhaka yesterday. Grameen Healthcare Trust and GE Healthcare are set to establish a social business healthcare delivery model for Bangladesh.Photo: STAR

Grameen Healthcare Trust and GE Healthcare yesterday joined hands to establish a social business healthcare delivery model for Bangladesh.
The new venture will jointly evaluate ways to improve Grameen Healthcare's service delivery systems and primary care clinics in rural Bangladesh.
Under the initiative, the partnership will find ways and means to introduce easy, affordable and technically suitable machines for rural Bangladesh to diagnose different diseases at an early stage.
“We will jointly develop a suitable model so that the globally reputed GE healthcare technology can be used with the help of already existing communication technology in diagnosing many diseases in rural Bangladesh," Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus said at a press conference in the city yesterday.
"A lot of people died here from diseases due to a lack of availability of diagnostic tools,” he said.
GE Healthcare is a unit of GE Technology Infrastructure, which is a unit of General Electric.
GE Healthcare has a broad range of products and services that include medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement solutions, drug discovery and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies.
The partnership will start its journey by providing services to pregnant women in rural areas.
“Although the country decreased maternity death, the existing rate is still higher than other developing nations. We want to decrease the rate and bring it down to the same level as other developed nations,” Yunus said.
Grameen will set up a modern medical college, a technical institution for technicians and a nursing institute of international standards.
Grameen Healthcare has already started negotiations with Mayo Medical School, USA and Pfizer.
Omar Ishrak, president and chief executive officer of GE Healthcare, and V Raja, president and chief executive officer of GE Healthcare South Asia, also spoke.