DHAKA: Country Representative of the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) Sarah Cooke and the Deputy Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Paul Sabatine on Wednesday visited health clinics in Chittagong under the Smiling Sun (Surjer Hashi) network.

They observed Smiling Sun’s static and a satellite clinic service delivery for local communities and interacted with Community Service Providers (CSPs), Surjer Hashi Community Shohojogi Group members, and healthcare-seeking clients, says a press release.

Earlier this year, the two major development partners of Bangladesh, USAID and DFID, joined together to make quality healthcare more widely available to poor Bangladeshi families through the Smiling Sun network of health clinics.

The release said, “Under this partnership, DFID provided an additional US $29 million to USAID’s five-year $54 million NGO Health Service Delivery Project, through which Smiling Sun clinics are able to reach several million additional people by providing basic health services that focus on improving women’s and children’s health in urban areas.
 
Smiling Sun clinics provide essential healthcare services conveniently to the poorest people in Bangladesh through a network of 26 NGOs, 334 clinic locations and more than 6,666 community health workers.

The USAID-DFID partnership complements Government of Bangladesh efforts to reach the poor with high-quality healthcare at low or no cost.

Having a nationwide presence in every district of the country, Smiling Sun clinics provide integrated family planning and health service coverage to 23 million people (15 percent of the population) in both urban and rural areas through 334 clinics and over 9018 satellite clinic sessions and 66,666 community workers through 26 National Non-Governmental Organizations, and, partners with Ministry of Health And Family Welfare, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, and, Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts for coordinated public health service delivery.

The DFID partnership with USAID is part of a larger UK aid urban health programme through which the UK government also supports Marie Stopes Bangladesh and BRAC to extend their maternal and primary health care services to the urban poor.”

DFID Country Representative Sarah Cooke said, “Through our urban health program and contribution to the NGO health service delivery project, we want to protect the poorest in Bangladesh from catastrophic health costs. The poorest families must not have to choose between losing all their hard-earned savings, which risks their livelihoods, and losing a family member to a treatable condition. We will be strengthening the coordination between different health service providers in order to create an effective referral system for patients. It is important that they receive the right health care from the right provider, from community outreach services to comprehensive maternal care. Smiling Sun clinics are an important part of that.”

BDST: 1740 HRS, OCT 15, 2014