The government has decided to collect donation for running the community clinics under a trust and make the facilities more effective by ensuring participation of the rural people.
To this end, the Cabinet on Monday approved the draft of 'Community Clinic Health Assistance Trust Bill, 2018' on condition of bringing some changes to the draft bill.
The approval came at the regular Cabinet meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair at her office, according to report on agencies.
After the meeting, Secretary (Coordination and Reform) at the Cabinet Division NM Ziaul Alam briefed reporters at the Bangladesh Secretariat.
“The Cabinet in its weekly meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair gave approval to the draft of the ‘Community Clinic Health Service Trust Act, 2018’,” he said.
"The goals of the Community Clinic Trust Assistance Bill is to ensure the participation of the people in coordinated healthcare services to rural people, to provide the healthcare services by using funds of the trust, and collect necessary social assistances and donation from individuals and organisations for providing the health services," he elaborated.
Besides, an effective referral system will be established between the community clinics and other hospitals including Union-level health sub-centres, Upazila health complexes, district-level hospitals, specialised hospitals and medical college hospitals, added Alam.
According to the proposed law, there will be an advisory council of the trust, headed by the Prime Minister, and a 14-member board to be headed by managing director to regulate the trust.
An additional secretary-level official will be the Managing Director of the board.
Ziaul said there are now 13,861 community clinics across the country and the government has a plan to set up 1029 more community clinics.
He said the community clinics have so far rendered services to 625.7 million patients (on multiple count basis) across the country.
Besides, the second quarterly (April-June) report 2018 on implementation of the Cabinet's decisions was placed at the meeting.
As per the report, some 75 per cent of the cabinet's decisions have already been implemented in the second quarter of this calendar year, while the implementation of the remaining 25 per cent decisions is underway.
The Cabinet took a total of 84 decisions between April and June 2018. Of these, 63 decisions have been implemented.