Recently USAID’s Nobo Jatra project organized three days training on “ANC, PNC and Labor room protocol” in Western Inn hotel of the city from 28th to 30th July 2019. Distinguished guests were present on the occasion of the inauguration of the training. The chair and chief guest of the inauguration session respectively wad Abdullah Sazzad, Director, Family Planning department, and Sheikh Yusuf Harun, Secretary, MEFWD. Among the special guests were Dr. Afroza Khanom, OGSB, Khulna, A SM Abdur Razzak, Civil Surgeon, Khulna, and Md. Yusuf Ali, Additional District Magistrate, Khulna.
At the beginning of the event, Alex Bekunda, Deputy Chief of Party, Nobo Jatra, welcome the guests. Then, Dr. Mushtaque Ahmed, Manager, MCHN component, explained the overall goal and objectives as well as highlighted every component under the project. The project is being implemented to improve the food security, nutrition and resilience conditions for the poor and extremely poor people in four Upazilas of southwest coastal districts of Khulna and Satkhira. Particularly the “Maternal Child Health and Nutrition” component of the project is working to strengthen the overall health system in the project areas through stunting reduction of poor children under five years of age, improved nutrition situation, development of Anti-natal and post-natal care services together with conditional cash transfer for poor mothers, growth monitoring and promotion of children, skill development of frontline staff of government health departments, health messages dissemination, coordination with relevant government stakeholders, etc. He emphasized on the provisions of quality service delivery with regard to anti-natal and post-natal health services, institutional delivery, and capacity enhancements of the health workers in the “Upazila Health and Family Welfare Centers” of all the forty unions of four Upazilas where Nobo Jatra works.
In her speech, Dr. Afroza said. “Bangladesh can fulfill the deprived necessities in the public health and nutrition sector if it takes the interventions taken by Nobo Jatra project as a model to replicate. However, the condition is the willingness and commitment for working in respective areas by all the concerned stakeholders”.
ASM Abdur Razzak, Civil Surgeon, Khulna said that the health department of the country is struggling with inadequate human resources to meet service demands in the rural areas. He opined that 100% fulfillment of the staff requirement in both health and family welfare center and Upazila health complex can help us achieve the ‘sustainable development goal’ within 2030.
“The programs implemented in the four working Upazilas by Nobo Jatra is practical and timely initiatives”, said Abdullah Sazzad, the chair of the event. He emphasized on the involvement of the Union Parishad chairmen in the project implementation. He draws the attention of the secretary alongside seeks support from the frontline health workers regarding the roles of health department to jointly work to fulfill three objectives – health service, education and employment.
Finally, Sheikh Yusuf Harun, Secretary of Health Education and Family Welfare Department, inaugurates the training session. He said that we need to increase the rate of institutional delivery to reduce the mortality rate of mothers. The national budget will have provisions to address a limitation in resources, lack of people for capacity building, and lack of data, which can help us achieve the ‘sustainable development goal’. The expenses for medical treatment in the Government hospitals is still low compared to the private ones; so there are scope to include more mothers under the perinatal health services. To address the limitation of an inadequate number of health staff, health department is going to take a crash program for mass recruitment. Health services for mothers should also be strengthened in the government satellite clinics at rural level. The government is facilitating necessary assistance in this regard. Feroz Ahmed, MCHN Coordinator, NJP was the moderator of the event.
