Foreign Minister discusses training of medical personnel with DG-WHO
Dhaka, 09 Mar 2010
Dr. Dipu Moni urged the Director General of World Health Organisation (WHO) to extend necessary support in training medical personnel, including doctors, nurses and paramedical service providers, for enabling them to work in the 18,000 community clinics that the government is building as part of its election manifesto to reach primary healthcare services at the doorsteps of people’s homes. She was discussing Bangladesh—WHO cooperation in improving primary healthcare and emergency service delivery in Bangladesh in a meeting held today with the visiting DG-WHO Dr. Margaret Chan at the State Guest House Padma.
Director General Dr. Margaret Chan narrated her positive experience of visiting yesterday a model community clinic at Chougacha of Jessore and the health impacts of Aila at Ashashuni of Satkhira, and expressed her profound satisfaction at the functioning of the community clinic. She was particularly impressed with the involvement of local community in the management of the community clinic, which contributed to a sense of belonging to the local people thereby significantly improving the working condition of the clinic. She also mentioned about the innovative use of mobile phone by the clinic as a tool for referral system for patients. Dr. Chan commented that the Chougacha model could be replicated in other parts of the country, which, she believed would play a critical role in improving primary healthcare delivery system in Bangladesh. She also promised to scale up training programme for Bangladesh to train the human resources employed in the community clinics.
They also discussed issues related to further development of Bangladesh’s pharmaceutical industry and the possibility of producing vaccines in Bangladesh. DG-WHO expressed WHO’s readiness to provide all support in producing vaccines in Bangladesh, and opined that the government should play a strong regulatory and quality control role in this venture. She promised that WHO was ready to extend all support in establishing a strong regulatory body and for commissioning a high-tech laboratory for quality control in Bangladesh.