Primary healthcare facilities have appeared as a godsend to rural mothers in Rajshahi for providing maternal and neonatal healthcare services.
These facilities include- union health and family welfare centres, union centres, community clinics, and rural dispensaries.
Along with prenatal, postnatal, neonatal, and child healthcare services, Normal vaginal delivery is also being carried out at those healthcare centres, health officials concerned said.
Around 35 mothers gave birth through normal vaginal delivery at Ghatnagar Union Health and Family Welfare Centre (UHFWC) under Porsha upazila in Naogaon district from October 2019 to February 2020, an official of the centre said.
It has also provided services on 508 antenatal, 92 postnatal, 622 family planning, a total of 1,200 children, and 5,280 general health during the period.
Runa Parvin, Family Welfare Visitor of Ghatnagar UHFWC, said many marginalized and underprivileged rural mothers are availing the services as their confidence in the primary healthcare centre has enhanced.
She also said the community volunteers, working with Public Health Improvement Initiative Rajshahi (PHIIR) project, are creating awareness among the grassroots people about the aspects of institutional delivery and other routine antenatal and neonatal healthcare services.
Shorifa, 19, wife of Muhammad Abdullah of Amdah Bohurul, was blessed with her first baby through normal vaginal delivery at Ghatnagar UHFWC without any complexities on February 12 last.
“I’m very happy after delivering my healthy baby,” said Shorifa, taking her smiling newborn baby on her lap.
She got all the necessary reproductive healthcare services free of cost from the centre smoothly.
“We had no capacity to bear the cost of the c-section (cesarean section) with my husband’s limited income,” she added.
Another mother Shantona, 21, wife of Muhammad Milon of South Para village, is also happy with normal vaginal delivery in the same centre on February 1 last.
“I’ve received healthcare services amid necessary counselling by community volunteers during the pregnancy period to make sure my baby is delivered safely,” she said.
DASCOH Foundation has been implementing the PHIIR project in five upazila health complexes, 42 UHFWCs, and 110 Community Clinics under Bagmara, Charghat, and Tanore upazilas in Rajshahi, and Porsha and Sapahar upazilas in Naogaon districts since 2013.
The project is intended to improve the health status of the targeted population with a special focus on maternal, neonatal, and child health at primary health care centres.
With the initiative of the PHIIR Project, Porsha upazila Chairman Shah Manzur Morshed Chowdhury visited the Ghatnagar UHFWC and held a coordination meeting with the concerned recently, discussing and devising ways and means on how to make the centre more effective.
