Flood relief underway

In addition to the larger education projects, OfP offers several donor-funded humanitarian programs. These include assisting needy families with health care and education costs as well as larger scale projects, such as nutrition supports. As you may have seen in recent news reports, Bangladesh has been hit hard by this year's monsoon rains, with flooding in many areas. This group of OfP volunteers has been distributing food packages to assist flood victims. The package contains rice, sugar (gur), pulses, oil, onion, oral salines and the like.

OfP healthcare centre launched

On July 8, a new clinic opened in Balagram. Over 25,000 people will rely on the OfP Health Care Centre. Basic services will be available 3 hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon every day. Rabiul Islam says, “My plan is to support a girl or boy's short training in primary healthcare and hire a full timer. We are also seeking doctors for maternal and child health consultation three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, 2 to 3 days a week.” In the photo, the first patient is having a health check-up, including BP and blood sugar. The community health worker (white jacket) running the session is Mehedi, a local resident who is currently also a nursing student at IUBAT.

Adult daycare in Bangladesh

Our colleague Prof. Hasnat Alamgir has written several editorials about important health care system issues in Bangladesh. In his latest piece, he describes how needs of elderly people are not being met due to social and demographic changes. Although there is a growing population of older adults, more female relatives now work outside the home and low-wage domestic helpers are less available. At the same time, Alamgir writes, social, religious, and family value systems discourage children from sending their parents to residential care facilities. He proposes adult daycare as a culturally appropriate option. This is also compatible with home support services, something that BHP volunteers have supported at the Sajida Foundation. In other columns for Financial Express, Prof. Alamgir has written about food safety, patient satisfaction, health outcome measures, and occupational health with a special focus on garment factory workers.