Community Clinics (CC) in Bangladesh are facilitating delivery of health services to the poor and communities especially in hard to reach areas. People can now avail of health, family planning and nutrition services under one roof of the Community Clinic. CCs have contributed significantly to the improvement of the overall antenatal and postnatal care in Bangladesh. To further build on the successes that it has already achieved, ensuring safe water and sanitation facilities for patients are very important. In general, lack of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) provision in healthcare facilities also increase the risk of healthcare acquired infections, and undermine national and global efforts to improve maternal, neonatal and child health. To set up a model; WASH facilities were provided in 40 selected community clinics in 7 districts under a partnership project ‘Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene in Difficult and Hard-to-Reach Areas of Bangladesh’ jointly funded by UNICEF, WHO and Department of Public Health Education - DPHE (funded by the Netherland Government).
n increase in number of female patients is registered and observed by the clinic staff which is attributed to a cleaner and more comfortable environment ensuring privacy. This was ensured with the construction of gender-segregated latrines, installation of piped water systems and hand-washing devices. To make the system self-sustained, a fund was generated through collection of a nominal fee of 2 BDT per patient. A guideline on operation and maintenance of the WASH facilities was developed and a number of training sessions were conducted for the caretakers and the members of the Community Clinics.
This initiative further reconfirmed that establishing adequate WASH standards in healthcare facilities is an attainable goal which will ensure increasing utilisation of public health facilities.