Nasrin is the young woman sitting across from me in our clinic in Khorail. She is still half a child herself at 15, with her baby on her lap, feverish and struggling to breathe. Nasrin and her toddler are two of 70 patients who visit our slum clinic daily.
We work in Dhaka at four different locations. Our school buildings are also used for medical work. Due to our morning working hours, it is mostly young women with their children as well as elderly people who seek our help. Men are occupied with work; a day without work is a day without money and ultimately a day without food for their families.
Our headquarters, with additional diagnostic facilities, is located in Manda, in our newly built trainingcenter. Our doctors’ residence is also there, making follow-up examinations easily possible in between.
The involvement of local doctors in our projects became a necessary solution during the COVID-19 pandemic due to travel restrictions. In the meantime, this has become a new and sustainable improvement in our medical work. Doctors from Bangladesh provide more continuity and ensure networking with local structures. This eliminates language barriers and intercultural misunderstandings. We also work with translators.
Often, the main problem of our patients is simply a lack of knowledge, not just their material poverty. The cycle of not knowing, having nothing, and being unable continues across generations among this group of underprivileged people.
Therefore, an important consequence of our work is education — education at all levels. In the medical project, this means mandatory participation in training sessions before every doctor’s consultation. These sessions cover important topics such as drinking water hygiene and latrines, healthy nutrition, contraception, vaccinations, learning to read and write, and much more.
Another measure to sustainably improve these living conditions is our school projects. Education for children from poor neighborhoods instead of child labor. Currently, nearly 2,000 children attend our schools in Dhaka every day, with a warm and healthy meal included.
Our medical focus remains on care for the poor. There is still a large number of people who cannot afford medical treatment or the costs of diagnostics and medication. We strive to provide regular long-term medication therapy, especially for our many elderly patients, on a continuous basis.
So why do many of these people still need us? When Werner Waldmann started in 1989, starving children were a frightening part of everyday life. Much has improved since then, not least because of our presence. Nevertheless, a portion of the population in Bangladesh still lacks adequate care. These are the people we want to continue supporting.
Your Dr. Christian Gruber
Co-founder and Deputy Chairman of the Austrian Doctors
