Six specialised hospitals will be built for workers in the industrial areas of Ashulia and Savar in Dhaka, Tongi and Kaliakair in Gazipur, Narayanganj and Chattogram. Only workers will be treated at the 100-bed hospitals.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman set out the plan at Monday’s (9 November) sitting of parliament.
On the first day of the 13th parliament’s fourth session, two newly elected MPs spoke after the break for Maghrib prayers on Monday. At that point BNP MP Shamsur Rahman Biswas Shimul rose. He said marginalised workers are deprived of health care and asked the prime minister whether hospitals would be built for them.
Deputy Speaker Barrister Kayser Kamal, in the chair, said the prime minister’s question time is on Tuesdays, and the prime minister would not be in parliament that day because he would be on a foreign visit. The deputy speaker then asked the prime minister whether he was ready to answer this unscheduled question.
Leader of the House Tarique Rahman then stood up to answer. “Under that autocracy’s misrule we saw how Bangladesh’s energy system was made dependent on foreign countries, how Bangladesh’s mineral resources were not used for the people of the country and everything was made dependent on imports,” he said. Blaming the past government, the prime minister said: “We saw how, instead of developing Bangladesh’s industry, Bangladesh was made dependent on imports, and how policies were deliberately adopted that stopped Bangladesh’s industry from developing normally. In exactly the same way, we saw how, in that autocracy’s time, Bangladesh’s health system was destroyed bit by bit.”
The prime minister alleged that whatever rural health care existed in the past was destroyed during the autocracy. He said the leader of the opposition had also raised his concern about Bangladesh’s health system a few days earlier. During that autocracy, they destroyed the health system by design and forced the people of Bangladesh to go to one particular country for treatment, he said.
Announcing the hospitals for workers, Tarique Rahman said the present government is elected by the people and is working for people of every class and profession. For the proper treatment of workers and working people, the government has decided to build six hospitals of 100 beds each. One hospital will be built in each of the industrial areas, such as Tongi, Ashulia, Kaliakair, Narayanganj, Savar and Chattogram, and will treat only workers. These hospitals for workers will be named and built accordingly, he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report