Day 13

5 minutes mobile hospital for one person in Bangladesh

Mobility for better health

A hospital that comes to the patients

Rida is one of four million textile workers in Bangladesh. While she lives with three colleagues in a small room near her factory, her three children live with their mother. Makhulia, the village Rida comes from, is in the Savar region. It is isolated and has no direct access to local or long-distance public transport. The nearest hospital is a three-hour drive away. To get there, you have to be able to afford transport to the bus stop and a ticket to the city - neither of which is easy for the people of Makhulia. So when Rida or her children get sick, the hospital comes to them. The mobile hospital is a converted van equipped with an extensive pharmacy and medical equipment. The residents of Makhulia and other villages are treated here free of charge.

Tanja Lanäus presents her favorite project

need

Easily accessible, free healthcare for the population of rural Savar, Dhamrai and Santal regions in Bangladesh

activity

Doctors come directly to the villages with a mobile hospital and pharmacy and provide free treatment for acute and long-term illnesses of the residents

Measurable performance

Number of hours of medical examinations and treatments of people by the mobile hospital

Result

People’s health situation has improved greatly thanks to easily accessible, regular treatments and check-ups

Systemically relevant impact

Free treatment and generally improved health improve the quality of life and life expectancy of people in rural Bangladesh

background

Textile factories like the one where Rida works consume a particularly large amount of water in and around Dhaka, which the local population and textile workers and their families lack. In addition, the handling of wastewater, especially in the textile industry, is hardly regulated, which means that unfiltered wastewater further poisons the groundwater (Sustainability, 2019). The available water sources are also polluted by severe salinization of the groundwater. This is due to a rise in sea levels caused by climate change, which also leads to high water and flooding (Christiane Grefe, 2014). Due to a lack of alternative water sources, people still drink contaminated or saline water and also use it for cooking and washing. To counteract the basic problem, the 24 Good Deeds Advent Calendar 2022 supported a project to provide textile workers in the Dhaka region with clean drinking water via water filters in the long term. However, many people are already ill or still live in places without safe access to drinking water. This good deed is intended to complement the water filters with an important component. The health consequences of contaminated drinking water range from skin irritations, gastrointestinal problems and poisoning to serious respiratory diseases and cancer (Sustainability, 2019). Conditions that often cannot be treated and become much worse because those affected have little or no access to basic medical care. The medical care provided by doctors and hospitals in Bangladesh is below average compared to the rest of the world. There are 0.8 hospital beds available per 1,000 inhabitants in the country. The global average is 2.9 beds (The World Bank, 2016). There are also only 0.7 doctors available per 1,000 inhabitants. Worldwide, there are 1.6 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants (The World Bank, 2020). This is where the mobile hospital comes in. Water-based illnesses, but also all other ailments of textile workers, their families and neighbors, should be able to be treated as effectively as possible through the mobile service.

The good deed

In order to improve medical care on site, the local NGO AGROHO has set up a mobile hospital that comes directly to the patients and has everything that might be needed. The hospital is currently mainly visiting villages in the Savar, Dhamrai and Santal regions, where the average income is well below the national average. The hospital, which is housed in a small van, is equipped with a treatment couch, medical instruments and equipment, and an extensive pharmacy. It is accompanied by a team of 2 doctors, 2 nurses, and 1 nursing assistant who visit 3-4 villages 6 days a week. Each village is visited at least once every 2-3 months. Up to 100 patients are treated in one day. Since 2018, there have been more than 718,000 people who would otherwise not have received medical care. In 2024, with the help of your good deed, at least 20,000 more patients are to be added.