Wed, Aug 13th, 2008
bdnews24.com

Grameen Bank founder Dr. Muhammad Yunus dreams of setting up a sprawling complex with a medical college, a number of specialised and general hospitals and a nurses' training centre.

"We had started establishing hospitals in villages to provide essential health services to the rural poor, but of the 38 such centres run with insurance money, 20 don't have doctors at the moment," the Nobel laureate said Wednesday at a ceremony to mark the foundation laying of the 200-bed Kidney Foundation Hospital and Research Institute.

"You'll hardly find doctors who'd volunteer to live in villages; therefore, we decided to build our own medical college to raise, train and groom a club of doctors who'll be committed to serving the rural poor."

Speaking as the chief guest, Yunus said: "In a bid to realise our dreams, we are now looking for 200 acres of land at a place, where we'll found a state-of-the-art medical college and hospitals."

"Medical and health professionals graduating from the envisaged medical college should be eligible for employment anywhere in the world. Rural women receiving training at the nurses' training centre here will be recruited by well-meaning health service providers at home and abroad."

Dr. Yunus stressed on introduction of health insurance throughout the country. Social responsibilities might very well be discharged alongside operating profitable businesses by running such enterprises as the proposed health services complex, Dr. Younus said.

"Those who go abroad for better treatment now will be provided similar health care at home at this hospital at not-at-all-exorbitant expenses and, again, the poor will be treated free of cost."

Of the envisaged facilities, work has been initiated on establishing a hospital with German and Saudi assistance, he said. Of the 15 planned eye hospitals, work on one has begun in Bogra. Kidney Foundation president professor Harun Ur Rashid said, "Of every six ailing persons in the country, one suffers from kidney disorders. Annually, around 40,000 kidney patients die untreated or wrongly treated, which means five die every hour."

"Deplorably, almost 60 percent of the kidney ailment patients remain unaware of their predicament as their kidneys get impaired silently and when at last, one is diagnosed as a kidney patient, one has to go for dialysis or kidney transplant, which they can hardly afford, both being outrageously expensive."

Claiming that the Kidney Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, Harun said, "The Foundation runs a 20-bed hospital in Dhanmondi. We have transplanted 86 kidneys in the last 18 months at minimal costs here. Once this 200-bed hospital comes into operation, a lot of people will be receiving quality kidney care at affordable expenses." National Professor Dr. MR Khan was present as special guest.