Call to strengthen public-private partnership in health sector

They said partnership can improve healthcare service delivery system significantly by making optimum utilisation of available public and private resources.

The experts shared their experiences at a dissemination seminar on 'Public Private Partnership (PPP) for Essential Health Services' at the ICDDR,B auditorium in the city. An NGO Network for PPP was also launched at the programme.

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Under a five-year pilot project of PPP, Community Health Scheme (CHS) has been launched in four regions of the country through 43 community clinics. The speakers highlighted the achievements of the project at the seminar.

They said decentralisation is the key to effective PPP and community participation is another important pillar of ensuring accountability.

Partnership among the government, NGOs and the community in delivering healthcare services is a unique approach and it ensures community ownership for sustainable health scheme and its quality and transparency, they said. It also generates funds and promotes networking with other healthcare service providers.

They also identified political pressure at local level as a major challenge for the health scheme.

The Department for International Development (DFID) in cooperation with NICARE have been funding the project through a number of NGOs -- Brac, TMSS, Papan Foundation, Jakas and DUIP in Brahmanpara, Sariakandi, Kali and Hatiya.

AFM Sarwar Kamal, health secretary, attended the inaugural session as the chief guest while Dr Mizanur Rahman, director general of health services, MA Akmal Hossain, director general of family planning, and M A Sabur, health adviser to DFID, were present as special guests.

Dr Md Azam Ali, team leader of PPP, and Dr Hosne Ara Begum, chairperson of NGO Network for PPP, provided an overview of the achievements of PPP.