Ensure healthcare for the poor, PM tells pro-govt doctors

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the doctors to ensure healthcare services for the poor in Bangladesh.

She made the appeal at the inauguration of the fourth national council of pro-government Swachip on Friday in Dhaka.
 
“Rise above petty interests. What matters most is how much [you] serve the people,” she said.
 
“Make sure the destitute are not deprived of medical treatment,” the prime minister added.
 
Swachip’s council to choose its new executives is taking place after a 12-year gap.
 
Hasina told the organisation to elect its leaders.
 
She urged the doctors to behave well with the patients.
 
“A doctor being nice can make a patient feel confident about recovery rather than medicine,” she added.

Hasina’s government set up Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Bangladesh’s first medical university, for medical research. Two more universities in Chittagong and Rajshahi are being set up.

“We’ve prioritised research in the medical universities,” she said.

The prime minister also emphasised producing medicine to combat common diseases in Bangladesh.

She said there were “talented people” in Bangladesh capable of making new drugs.

Hasina highlighted the need for community clinics to ensure healthcare services at the grassroots.

She recalled how the BNP-led government had shut the clinics when it was in power.

“We’ll make these clinics autonomous through law to prevent anyone from stopping their operation,” the prime minister said, adding 16,000 such clinics were operating in Bangladesh at present.

She appreciated the doctors for properly treating arson victims “despite their limitations” during the BNP-led alliance’s three-month-long violent agitation.

Hasina also spoke of her plan to set up a national burns and plastic surgery institute to treat the burn victims.

She called on everyone not to look down upon children with autism.

“We are collecting information from every house for screening autistic children,” she added