Government to set up kidney dialysis centres in all districts

The government has taken initiatives to set up kidney dialysis centres in all the districts of Bangladesh.

The Executive Committee of National Economic Council cleared a related project in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka on Tuesday.

The authorities will set up 50-bed kidney dialysis centres in all the medical college hospitals and 10- bed centres in the district hospitals at a total estimated cost of over Tk 2.55 billion under the project.

Though treatment for kidney problems is available in the Upazila health complexes and district hospitals besides the medical college hospitals, the facilities are insufficient considering the huge number of patients which is increasing every day.

The project, to be complete by 2022, aims to provide advanced treatment for rural patients at the district level, Planning Secretary Nurul Amin told the reporters after the meeting at the NEC conference room in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.

A total of nine development projects in different sectors costing over an estimated Tk 24.22 billion were approved at the ECNEC meeting along with the project on the kidney dialysis centres.

The agencies implementing the projects will finance Tk 3.13 billion of the amounts while the government will fund the rest.

Secretary Alam said Hasina returned another project for feasibility study to be done by a third party. The project at an estimated cost of nearly Tk 32.8 billion is on Teletalk’s network expansion in the rural areas and modernisation for 5G services.