Highlighting the importance of increasing the quality of health services, Health Minister Zahid Maleque on Tuesday urged the physicians and responsible officers in the health sectors to deal with patients with sincerity and from the heart so that people from abroad visit Bangladesh for treatment.

“Many people of the country go abroad for treatment purposes and lose everything after spending money there. But there are many big hospitals here with expensive machinery and renowned physicians. Only goodwill and sincerity are needed for ensuring proper health services at the hospitals,” he said.

The minister came up with the urge while speaking at a view-exchange meeting with the chiefs of the health services organisations of Dhaka division, at a resort in Narsingdi.

It is impossible to improve the quality of health services of the people of the country without the desired services of the upazila level government hospitals, he said.

The government has given special attention to the upazila level hospital like the district level hospital, he said. New machines were procured while machines that remained out of order have been repaired and adequate manpower is being appointed, he added.

The process to recruit necessary technicians and pharmacists is underway. The quality of government health services at the upazila level is being doubled by increasing the number of beds at the upazila level, providing dialysis beds, and taking initiatives to operate in the operation theatres in the upazila hospitals, said the minister.

Presided over by the director general of the health services Prof. ABM Khurshid Alam, the meeting was attended among others by ·Health Education Division Secretary Azizur Rahman, its Directorate General Prof. Titu Mia, Additional secretary Nazmul Haque, additional director general (planning) Prof. Ahmedul Kabir, Director of Dhaka Division Dr. Farid Hossain Mia, civil surgeons of 13 districts and officers of 76 upazila and upazila health complex.