A knowledge dissemination workshop on ‘WASH & CLEAN in the labour ward: A situation analysis in India and Bangladesh”was held on 25 March 2015 at BRAC Centre Auditorium.  The Bangladesh part of this study is a collaboration between BRAC and the University of Aberdeen, UK with funding support from the Soapbox Collaborative, UK. In the workshop, findings of the study on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and infection prevention practices in maternity unit of hospital was shared withstakeholders working in the field of maternal health.

Dr. Md Shah Nawaz, Additional Director General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Bangladesh was present as the chief guest.Professor DrMdShamiul Islam, the Line Director of Hospital Services Management, Directorate General of Health Service was the special guest. Among the key speakers were Dr. Wendy J Graham, Professor of Obstetric Epidemiology, University of Aberdeen, UK, MS Suzanne Cross, Senior Programme Officer, The Soapbox Collaborative, UK andDrTanveenIshaque, Senior Research Associate, Research and Evaluation Division, BRAC. The session was chaired by Dr. Ahmed MushtaqueRaza Chowdhury, Vice Chairperson, BRAC. Academicians, researchers, policy makers, clinicians, professionals, microbiologists and representatives from national and international organisations were present in the session.

Bangladesh findings were shared by DrTanveenIshaque and MrsAtiya Rahman.One of the key findings of the study is that visual cleanliness does not always indicate microbiological safety. The cleaner environment might have fewer germs, but not necessary they are completely safe. Inadequacies in training on infection, prevention and control for healthcare providers and an absence of training for cleaners were identified. The majority of healthcare providers expressed their need to get formal infection prevention training for their cleaners and other health care providers. Lack of organizational policies and protocols for infection prevention and control, absence of formal infection control committee and relevant checklists for monitoring and quality control contributed to suboptimal standards of infection, prevention and control practices in the participating facilities. Staff motivation specifically cleaners of the health facilities were shaped by high level of dissatisfaction due to heavy workload and poor salary which ultimately affecting the overall infection prevention practices of the facilities.  Most women who received care from the participating facilities did not have any idea about the fatal consequences or risks that they or their baby might face as a result of exposure to an unsafe hospital environment.

In his speech, Dr. Md Shah Nawaz talked about some of the important characteristics of Bangladesh health sector.  Per capita health expenditure is only $27 dollar/ year. The rate of institutional delivery is 29%. He talked about the wide variation in the service provision between urban and rural setting. Even within the urban setting, wide variation exists. For example, cost of cesareans delivery varies widelyranging from BDT 4000 taka to overBDT 100,000. He mentioned that our health sector has good data storage and management information system. There is more than 180,000 service centres available all over the country. He gratefully recognisedthe valuable contribution of some of the distinguished guest present in the session and also requested others to come forward.

In his speech, DrMdShamiul Islam mentioned about the remarkable growth in health sector. However, there is lots of scope of improvement in service quality. There is clear relationship between infection and maternal mortality. So infection prevention and control is very important. Visual cleanliness is not sufficient. He mentioned that there is lots of rules, regulation and protocols ara available, but they are not properly implemented. He sought everyone’s support in the health sector. He thanked the team of this valuable and timely research and also welcomed more researchers to conduct evidence based researches.

In the concluding remark Dr. Ahmed MushtaqueRaza Chowdhury said that we all have a role to play in ensuring WASH and Clean practice. It is not just about having a protocol, rather there needs to be a detailed and clear strategy. Finally he thanked the researcher team, government officials and audience to be part of this knowledge dissemination strategy.

The dissemination session was followed by a consultative policy discussion session. National & international experts on health sectorwere given some of the priority areas of maternal health. They identified key issues under each area, suggested next step, proposed timeline and identify priority stakeholders for the programme implementation
 

24 March 2015, Dhaka. Three national media houses and 23 journalists from national and local newspapers have won the BRAC Media Award 2015 for their special reports on tuberculosis issues. The winners will receive the award from the honourable minister of the ministry of health and family welfare at a grand ceremony on march 24, World TB Day. This award ceremony is one of the major events organised on the occasion of the day in the country. 

A three-member jury gave its judgment after a scrutiny of the reports submitted. Senior journalist Md Farid Hossain, former bureau chief of AP, chaired the jury with Shahnaz Munni, news editor, ATN Bangla, and Dr Asif Muztaba Mahmud as the other members. Dr Mahmud acted as the technical expert for the jury.

The awards were given under three main categories: print, electronic and online media reporting. The print media reports which are most in number, were again divided into eight categories of seven divisions and national level. 

The Daily Ittefaq, The Daily Observer and NTV (International Television Channel Ltd), have been awarded the prize this year in recognition of their contribution in raising awareness about the issue.

Here we present the award winning reports.
 

February 27, 2015.

Support through sales of TOMS Bags will help provide the conditions necessary for a safe and sanitary birth for women in Bangladesh

BRAC announces a partnership with TOMS today that will help provide safe conditions for childbirth for expecting mothers in developing countries, starting in Bangladesh. 

Formerly Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, BRAC is a global leader in providing cost-effective healthcare and other anti-poverty solutions to empower the world’s poor, while TOMS is known for its OneforOne® consumer philanthropy model. BRAC will receive funding this year for training of community health promoters in Bangladesh from sales of a new line of TOMS Bags.

“We welcome the support from TOMS in our training of healthcare workers in Bangladesh,” says Dr. Kaosar Afsana, director of BRAC’s health, nutrition and population program at BRAC headquarters in Dhaka. “This support will strengthen and sustain safe and sanitary birth for tens of thousands of women.”

Childbirth is still one of the leading causes of death for women worldwide. Most of these deaths can be prevented through the delivery of simple solutions and adequate training for health workers. In Bangladesh, BRAC has made tremendous inroads against maternal mortality by training frontline community health workers. It is running similar programs in Afghanistan, Liberia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Uganda.

“This is an important initiative by TOMS, which has shown readiness to expand its philanthropy into healthcare solutions that have been proven to work,” says Scott MacMillan, a spokesperson for BRAC USA in New York, which facilitated the partnership. “Consumers should understand that we can eliminate many of the causes and conditions of poverty by focusing on the effective delivery of training, services and basic health commodities.”

“This partnership will start in Bangladesh, but if successful, there is scope to expand it to other countries, given the tremendous need for access to healthcare in places like Sierra Leone, Liberia and South Sudan, where maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world. We welcome the support of corporate partners in bringing those numbers down and creating safer conditions for mothers everywhere.”

The BRAC-TOMS partnership builds on BRAC’s outstanding track record in Bangladesh, a country credited by British medical journal The Lancet with outstanding progress in basic health indicators.

In 1990, the maternal mortality rate in Bangladesh was one of the worst in the world, with 575 deaths per 100,000 births. In the last 20 years, the country has made staggering improvements, with a 40 percent reduction in the rate in the last decade alone. Bangladesh is likely to reach the UN Millennium Development goal of 143 deaths per 100,000.

BRAC started as a small relief effort in 1972 and has grown into the world’s largest nongovernmental organization, measured by number of full-time staff and the estimated number of people it reaches. It is known in the international development community for providing opportunities for the poor on a massive scale. It reaches an estimated 135 million people in 11 countries, operating multiple programs in health, education, microfinance and other areas. BRAC takes a holistic approach to poverty with a breadth of interventions that include healthcare, women’s and girls’ empowerment, microfinance, social justice, and tens of thousands of its own schools. It also runs a full-fledged university, BRAC University, with its own graduate school of public health, in Bangladesh.

BRAC believes that if women and girls have access to the right tools, they can take control of their own lives and end poverty. Its maternal health program advances this philosophy by training self-employed community health promoters and birth attendants, providing both entrepreneurship solutions for women in poorer communities and healthcare for their neighbors.

BRAC’s model for its maternal, child and neonatal health program trains a network of 110,994 self-employed health workers worldwide – community health promoters or “shasthya shebika” in the Bengali language – to deliver health services and to refer patients with complications to nearby facilities.

In 1999, BRAC started manufacturing delivery kits to be sold by these trained health workers. Delivery kits include basic items necessary for a sanitary birth – sterile soap, gauze, a plastic sheet, and a surgical blade to cut the umbilical cord. BRAC health workers sell about 400,000 kits a year and, along with birth attendants, are trained in their proper usage.

For every purchase of one of TOMS new line of bags, BRAC will receive funding to train one health worker in the usage and distribution of these kits.
 

On 16 February, 2015, BRAC held a launching workshop for its collaborative evaluation study with the American Institute for Research (AIR). The Evaluation of the BRAC Nutrition and Early Childhood Programme is being carried out under a grant from the Nutrition Embedding Evaluation Programme (NEEP), a four-year programme agreement between the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the US based donor organisation PATH. Malnutrition and under-nutrition among young children is a pressing health issue for Bangladesh. A lot of this is tied to the issue of early childhood development. Given the scale and scope of BRAC’s nutrition and early childhood development related interventions, the findings of this evaluation can have tremendous implications for the future of similar initiatives in Bangladesh and the rest of the developing world.

The workshop featured presentations on BRAC’s health programme, its nutrition and early childhood development interventions as well as a session on the proposed evaluation. It also brought together key experts and stakeholders from the field of health, nutrition and early childhood development, encouraging open dialogue and an exchange of ideas on the growing issue of child under-nutrition and malnutrition in Bangladesh.