"We’ve taken various steps to upgrade upazila hospitals…we’ve upgrade the ten-bed hospitals to 50-bed ones. There should be at least 10 doctors in every hospital but in some places only one doctor is there-- at best four. Doctors aren’t staying there (upazilas)," she lamented.
The Prime Minister said this while addressing the Physicians' Conference 2018 at her official residence Ganobhaban.
Sheikh Hasina said how people will avail of medicare services if the posted doctors do not attend their duties in their stations. "This is my question; we’ve created posts. Doctors are given postings but we aren’t getting doctors there. “Why people are being neglected!"
Sheikh Hasina clearly mentioned that the people of the country do not expect such an attitude from the doctors who have got government jobs. "I request you (doctors) all to think about it."
The Prime Minister mentioned that the government is aware about the accommodation crisis of government officials at the upazila level and said her administration has taken a move to construct multistoried buildings there to provide better accommodation to them.
She said her government’s aim is to take all the public services to the doorsteps of people. "Keeping eyes on that, we’re doing various types of works so that people could get their medicare services at their doorsteps."
Hasina said it is the prime responsibility of doctors to ensure the medical services to people.
"Medical services will have to be ensured all over the country, not only in Dhaka. I hope you’ll pay a special attention to that. The quality of the services has to be improved.”
Talking about private medical colleges, she said there should a strong monitoring what the private medical colleges teaching to their students, what their curricula are and whether they have appropriate hospitals nearby them to provide proper training to their students. "These have to be ensured so that doctors coming out from these medical colleges could give proper medicare services to patients."
Hasina said the government always pays attention to education and thinks that the medical education is very much important. "That’s why we’re establishing one medical university in each division of the country."
The Prime Minister also briefly described various programmes taken for the development of medicare services of the country and for the physicians.
Presided over by BMA president Dr Mustafa Jalal Mohiuddin, the programme was addressed, among others, by Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammad Nasim, State Minister Dr Zahid Maleque, president of the Confederation of Medical Associations in Asia and Oceania Dr Ravindran R Naidu, BMA secretary general Dr. Md. Ehteshamul Huq Choudhury and BMA Vice President (Dhaka City) Dr Kanak Kanti Barua.
Earlier, the Prime Minister inaugurated the programme through hoisting the national flag and releasing white doves.