Mothers’ and children from ultra-poor cluster of the country’s population have started seeing the light of hope for a better livelihood as various government and non-government safety net programmes are offering wide range of supports especially in nutrition and primary health care sector.
Though Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty over the past two decades, the country is among the ten countries with the highest prevalence of malnutrition, as about 31 percent of children under five are stunted.
Children from poor households bear a disproportionate burden of stunted growth. Ensuring nutrition prenatally and in the early years can help maximize a child’s brain development and growth. Keeping this factor in mind, the present government has taken various safety net programmes targeting the ultra-poor faction of the population to upgrade their nutritional status.
The community clinics, a flagship programme of the Awami League government, an innovation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, aim to extend primary health care to the doorsteps of rural people especially the ultra-poor people all over Bangladesh.
There are nearly 18,000 community clinics across the country offering affordable healthcare, particularly for people of low income group. Community health clinics are providing a broad range of services and health promotion activities to local population, particularly those who have or are at risk of poor health.
Faizul Islam, a 56-year old man who still works as a day labourer and resides in one of the houses at Dharmapur shelter project in Feni district said, “We are too poor to see private physicians. We don’t have enough money to go to Sadar upazila to see a doctor even at the public hospital there.
