Public, Private, NGO Links Serve Basic Healthcare

Public, Private, NGO Links Serve Basic Healthcare



Sunday, 31 May 2009
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Public, private and NGO linkages could go a long way to serving basic healthcare to all, said the prime minister's adviser on health, Syed Modasser Ali, on Sunday."We need to foster partnerships between public, private and NGO initiatives, specifically targeting the underprivileged population of the country to make basic healthcare services available to all," said the health adviser, speaking as chief guest at one such intitiative.Launched in May 2007, more than a million economically disadvantaged mothers and their babies have been served by the Grameenphone Safe Motherhood and Infant Care Project.Sunday saw five ambulances being handed to NGOs by Grameenphone, the country's leading mobile operator, as part of the project also supported by USAID.USAID's mission director Denis Rollins said over the past three decades, USAID has been the leading donor in health and family planning programmes in Bangladesh."In this programme we are trying to make a different form the health condition of the people the country. "GP's chief of human resources Arnfinn Groven said, "Our collective effort to keep every mother and child closer can build a healthy and thriving Bangladesh."In partnership with Pathfinder International, and operating through USAID's network of 319 Smiling Sun clinics in 61 districts, the Grameenphone Safe Motherhood and Infant Care Project provides free yet comprehensive safe motherhood and infant care services to all underprivileged pregnant mothers and their infants across the country.Notably, Bangladesh has one of the highest maternal mortality rate (290 per 100,000) and infant mortality rate (52 per 1,000) in Asia, with only 20 percent of the women in Bangladesh receiving the services of skilled attendants at delivery.However, reducing maternal and infant mortality is two of the eight development targets known as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for Bangladesh by 2015.