Five children’s hospitals to begin operations by October.
Five full-fledged children’s hospitals will begin operations in five divisions of the country by October, State Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr MA Muhith said today.
“By October, five newly constructed full-fledged children’s hospitals in five divisional and district cities across the country will formally begin providing medical services,” he said.
He made the remarks while addressing a workshop on “Measles Spread and Genetic Surveillance” and a research grant award ceremony at Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
The hospital’s Department of Epidemiology and Research and icddr,b jointly organized the event, where the findings of research on the issue were presented.
Dr Muhit said every 50-bed Upazila Health Complex in the country is being upgraded to 150 beds to strengthen healthcare services at the grassroots level. At the upazila level, four core areas—pediatrics, medicine, surgery and gynecology—will receive the highest priority, he added.
He said the current epidemic was the result of the immunity gap created by the failure to take timely initiatives and policy negligence during the 2024 vaccination campaign. “The surge in deaths cannot be stopped by installing a thousand ventilators or ICU beds. Prevention and vaccination are the only solution,” he added.
Saying there is no scope for unrealistic assurances, he said even if the pace of vaccination is increased by 100 percent, it would take another two to three months to bring the outbreak under full control. However, efforts are underway to reduce child deaths through maximum treatment and field-level surveillance during this period, he added.
Dr M A Muhith said a major recruitment drive would be undertaken to address structural weaknesses in the health system. One lakh new health field workers would be recruited very soon to take primary healthcare and maternal and child health services to households across the country, he added.
To overcome the crisis, he said, the recruitment process for 5,000 new doctors will be completed soon, followed by the recruitment of the required number of nurses and medical technologists in phases.
Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services Professor Dr Prabhat Chandra Biswas, Director (Hospitals) Dr Md Nurul Islam and IEDCR Director Dr Kazi Ahmed Zaki also spoke at the event with Professor Dr A K M Azizul Haque, Chairman of the Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute, in the chair.
The key research findings and data were jointly presented by Professor Dr Mirza Md Ziaul Islam of the Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute and Dr Mustafizur Rahman, chief scientist of the Virology Department at icddr,b.
