“Clinical Appeal” Creates New Appeal in Bangladesh Rural Health

Not many women give birth at hospitals in Bangladesh, with only four in every 10 women delivering with the help of skilled hands. Postnatal care is also rare. But Suchitra Sutradhar is one of those few who, despite living in a remote village, gave birth at a facility and keeps coming to that centre for her post-delivery check-ups.

“This is my third child. But this was the first time I delivered at a hospital,” she told bdnews24.com at Dighalbak Union Health and Family Welfare Centre, in a far-off village in the north-eastern Habiganj district.

“In fact we received this hospital only recently,” she said, at the facility, holding her seven-month-old daughter.

The two-storied Centre which stands out in the village for its modern building façade is giving a new life to the ailing rural health of that union.

It was inaugurated in October last year after being built through an “unusual” private approach, and later handed over to the government.