Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged upon all staff of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) to demonstrate enough efficiency through research and sincerity to provide improved and better services to the patients.
The PM made the remarks while inaugurating the newly constructed outdoor complex at the BSMMU in the capital.
She said the BSMMU is the country’s only medical university where students and researchers could carry out research activities alongside higher education.
Hasina also stated that it was her government that had decided during its 1996-2001 tenure to transform the then PG Hospital into a medical university and that far-sighted decision now has appeared right and now people are getting better treatment from there.
The premier mentioned that the BSMMU is being developed as a centre of excellence where an Autism centre has been set up while a Palliative Care unit for marginal patients in the death bed. Besides, a bachelor course has already been introduced at the university for further modernising Nursing Education, Hasina went on.
Reiterating to set up two more medical universities in Chittagong and Rajshahi, the PM said she has already directed the authorities concerned to take measures.
All the medical colleges will be affiliated under the medical universities in the respective regions, she said, adding that she has already gave direction for transforming the country’s over 500-bed hospitals into medical colleges.
She also asked the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to take initiatives to establish a separate wing for general hospitals at the Railway Hospital to provide medical services for the general patients living in adjacent areas of those.
The Prime Minister said new forms of diseases are being detected across the world and hoped that the physicians would be more attentive in medical research and try to find out a new path for the prevention of diseases and low-cost treatment facilities.
Terming physicians friends of distressed people, Hasina said their little cooperation and positive gesture and good behaviour could help them forget the sufferings.
She thanked the BSMMU authorities for forming Institutional Review Board (IRB) to upgrade its research activities to international standards.
Hasina said her government has taken the healthcare services to the doorsteps of people by setting up about 13,500 community clinics and 1,500 union health centres across the country.
She regretted that the BNP-Jamaat government in its previous tenure stopped those on political ground and deprived the rural people from getting the medical services.
About recruitment of new physicians, Hasina said her government appointed over 8,500 assistant surgeons and assistant dental surgeons through BCS examinations as well as more than four thousand Assistant Surgeons on ad-hoc basis in last couple of years.
Besides, the government has taken initiatives to create more trained nurses and created opportunities for their higher education on nursing, she added.
Health and Family Welfare affairs Minister Mohammad Nasim and State Minister of the Ministry Jahid Malek also spoke on the occasion.