Health Care

Being one of the poorest and most inaccessible areas in the country there is an acute need of healthcare intervention in the Char and riverbank areas of northern Bangladesh. Often the Char dwellers cannot go to the nearest towns for medical treatment because of the distance and lack of transportation. Hence, they are burdened with numerous bacterial/viral/parasitic diseases and various other communicable diseases. Malnutrition, ignorance and lack of health education have made the situation all the more worst. As a result the whole community, especially women and children who have even lesser access to resources, has to suffer severely from the lack of access to health services.

Because of the inaccessibility of these areas and extreme difficulty with land based operations Friendship has developed a unique infrastructure of river based health service delivery system through a floating hospital and satellite boats. Through its flagship project, the Lifebuoy Friendship Floating Hospital, the organization has been able to provide primary and secondary healthcare care, family planning, nutrition and child immunization support to the most marginalized and poor communities living in remote areas which are inaccessible to the GOB and other NGOs.

The following graph shows primary and secondary health care services by Friendship from 2001 to 2007.