PM calls for low cost healthcare

Urging the faculties of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University to do intense research, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the researchers of medical science must find ways for prevention of new diseases and provide people with low cost healthcare services.

She said healthcare services were a basic right of the people. Only a healthy person can play a role in the nation building activities, and a doctor is the best friend of an ailing person to ensure the basic rights, she said.

Hasina was inaugurating the newly constructed outpatients department complex, comprising two units, of BSMMU at Shahbagh in the capital.

She also placed a wreath at the mural of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman there.

“A little sympathy of a doctor can help a patient forget pain and distress. You have to keep in mind that patients are guests in a hospital. So you have to see that your behaviour doesn't hurt them,” she said.

Hasina said BSMMU was currently the only medical university in the country where researches are carried out alongside higher education in medical science.

She said the number of patients seeking treatment abroad had remarkably decreased over the last few years against the backdrop of improvement in medical services of the country.

“Higher research is necessary for achieving excellence in this field ,” she added. She said her government has a plan to establish two more medical universities in Chittagong and Rajshahi, and she had already asked the authorities concerned to take necessary measures in this regard, while all medical colleges would come under the universities in respective regions. 

Hasina said her government had already directed the concerned authorities to take steps for transforming the hospitals with more than 500 beds into medical colleges, particularly those under the military administration.

She also asked the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to take an initiative for establishing a separate wing at Railway Hospital in Kamalapur to provide healthcare services to general patients in the capital.

She said BSMMU was being developed as a centre of excellence where an autism center had been set up for care of affected children, and a palliative care unit for patients in death-bed.

She said bachelor courses had already been introduced at the BSMMU for modernising nursing education, and for producing more trained nurses.