Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Wednesday said the country has witnessed remarkable progress in the health sector during the Awami League government.
"A significant development has been made in all key indicators of health sector including average life expectancy, reduction of child mortality, controlling of birth growth rate," he told this in a discussion at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium.
The Health and Public Welfare Ministry organized the discussion marking World Health Day-2023, an official release said.
Secretary of Healthcare Service Division Anwar Hossain Hawlader, Secretary of Medical Education and Family Welfare Division Md Azizur Rahman and Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Dr Abul Bashar Mohammad Khurshid Alam, among others, addressed the discussion.
The health minister said alongside ensuring better healthcare facilities, the government has established healthcare institutions to make further improvements to the health sector.
"Now the country has 37 public medical colleges, which was eight earlier," he added.
Maleque said the government has launched institutional practices at public hospitals to provide better healthcare services to the common people.
Under institutional practices, after working hours, doctors at 51 public hospitals under 39 upazilas of 12 districts are seeing patients taking fees.
Maleque said, "We have introduced the Boikalic Sashtoseba(afternoon healthcare service) as a pilot program to discourage people to go to private hospitals and clinics.... I hope people will get better healthcare facilities under the newly introduced programme at public hospitals."
The government has started the boikalic Sashtoseba programme on a limited scale and it will be expanded on a large scale after reviewing the outcome of the pilot programme, he added.
The under-5 child mortality rate in the country dropped to 31 per 1,000 live births in 2022 from 43 in 2017, according to the preliminary report of the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS)- 2022.
"The child mortality rate under one year is 25 per live birth while the child death rate under one month is 20 per live birth," the BDHS report said.
The BDHS report also showed 70 per cent of mothers giving birth in 2022 in the country are attended by trained medical professionals, which is a significant progress compared to past previous years.
