Health Sector to Change in Two Years: Upazila Hospitals to 150 Beds and 5,000 Doctors to Be Recruited, Says Health Minister

The government is working to change the face of the country's health sector within the next two years, Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Hossain has said. He outlined the plan on Monday as chief guest at the inauguration of a medical physics programme at BRAC University in the capital.

Under the plan, upazila hospitals will be upgraded to 150 beds. At the same time, primary healthcare will be expanded at union and ward level.

The health minister said that, alongside new buildings at union level, there is a plan to build one family wellbeing centre for every three wards in each union. The former community clinics will be converted into health wellbeing centres.

Those facilities will have doctors, midwives, nurses and other necessary staff, he said. In his words, the government is working to take healthcare to the village level.

The minister also spoke of plans to introduce blood testing machines and breast cancer detection at ward level. Initiatives will be taken to preserve people's health data and to give everyone a health card.

There are also plans to expand treatment for mothers and newborns, dialysis and physiotherapy at upazila hospitals. He mentioned a plan to keep 10 dialysis beds at upazila level for kidney patients.

Work is under way to establish eight cancer institutes in the eight divisions to expand cancer treatment, the health minister said. Initiatives have been taken to open children's hospitals in five divisions, and several hospitals are targeted to open within the next 60 days.

He said building hospitals alone is not enough for cancer treatment. Skilled staff, including doctors, nurses, medical physicists and radiotherapy technologists, must be trained. There is a plan to install more radiotherapy machines in the next fiscal year, and efforts will be made to take this treatment to district level as well.

On recruitment, the health minister said the process to recruit 5,000 doctors is under way. In addition, there is a plan to recruit a total of 41,390 workers in the health sector, including 25,000 midwives.

Through the midwives, initiatives will be taken to provide regular check-ups for pregnant women and support for normal deliveries, he said.

The health minister said that in the past 17 years, mismanagement and corruption in the health sector had wasted many opportunities. Expensive medical equipment was bought without the necessary manpower and infrastructure.

Citing two accelerator machines in Barishal and Gopalganj as examples, he said each machine cost 18 crore taka, but they cannot be used because the necessary manpower and infrastructure were not created.

He said that, alongside increasing the health budget allocation, proper use of the money must be ensured. Setting up hospitals or equipment alone will not be enough; skilled manpower to run them must also be created. The target is to build this infrastructure within the next two years, he said.