Health Minister Mohammad Nasim on Sunday demanded increased allocation for the health sector to ensure better healthcare for all.
He made the demand while participating in the general discussion on the proposed budget for the 2015-16 fiscal.
“MPs are demanding for ambulances, I prepared those, but couldn’t bring those for lack of money,” the Minister told the House adding, “People are now getting food and cloths; they now want healthcare facilities…we’ll have to ensure that,” he said.
Talking about his success to provide doctors in rural areas, the Health Minister said ones doctors used to avoid staying in villages. “Now doctors are there, it happened in the last two years, public hospitals in villages are the only hope for the villagers.”
He mentioned that 14,000 community hospitals across the country are filling the basic medical needs of the villagers. “There is no Lab Aid there…there are only 14,000 community hospitals.”
Nasim promised to set up CCUs and ICUs in all districts of the country. “Hiron (sitting MP from Barisal and former Mayor of Barisal City Corporation) died of just non-availability of an ICU. We won’t let any other Hiron or any person to die just for the non-availability of an ICU,” he told the House.
He said there will be medical universities in Chittagong and Rajshahi. “We need more doctors, the number of doctors and nurses in the country are less for the 16 crore people. A process is underway to appoint 10,000 nurses.”
