Ten years, ten thousand reads

In 2014, IUBAT’s Centre for Policy Research published “Advancing Nurse Education in Bangladesh.” This policy paper, written by BHP Director Alex Berland has since been read over 10,000 times. Berland’s “road-map” identifies three opportunities for scaling-up and strengthening nursing capacity in Bangladesh:

1)      Build a leadership coalition and guiding strategy for nursing resource development

2)      Create a country-wide collaborative effort to advance nurse education

3)      Develop system supports to raise standards in nursing education and practice

Globally, health human resources is a major concern. Since this publication, the nursing profession in Bangladesh has experienced many changes. Some have been positive such as significant improvements in public attitudes, wider recognition of the contributions of nurses, greater demand for quality education and slightly improved working conditions. Unfortunately, there continues to be wide variation in education experiences and not enough use of nurses to tackle public health concerns such as NCDs and mental health needs. Planning is now underway to update the road-map with current perspectives from working nurses and policy experts in Bangladesh.

Advancing Nurse Education in Bangladesh

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Strengthening health systems globally

BHP director Alex Berland recently published A self-assessment guide for readiness to govern in the International Journal of Health Governance. Effective governance is essential for improving quality of care, human resource management and business practices. The article introduces a “Readiness Self-Assessment Guide” that can be used as a diagnostic tool to help health service governors and managers, particularly in Low-Middle Income Countries. It is based on Berland’s experience working in health care systems globally, including a recent project with Sajida Foundation Hospital, Keraniganj, Bangladesh.

BHP spends your money wisely

A recent article from Your World in Data explains what makes charities effective: simply put, they can do a lot with relatively little money. According to external evaluation, “Charities that achieve [a high] level of cost-effectiveness do quite different things [but] they have two things in common. They all focus on the world’s poorest people, which makes sense as $1,000 makes a much larger difference to someone who has very little. They also all tend to focus on causes that don’t receive much public attention. That makes sense, too — for the causes that receive the most attention, all the lowest-hanging fruits have already been picked.”

BHP uses all donations to support its health care and education activities in Bangladesh, mostly in an impoverished agricultural district in the country’s north-west. In addition to making program contributions for teacher salaries and equipment, BHP Directors pay for BHP overhead costs and for their own travel expenses to oversee the projects. This means that your donations are spent entirely in Bangladesh. Please contact us for more information or donate directly through Canada Helps.