Project Duration: July 2015 to December 2018

Donor: Novartis and Swiss contact

When we started ASTHA project Bangladesh has a large population of around 151.4 million where about 75% of the population lives in rural areas. Limited access to quality healthcare was one of the major problems faced by the people in rural Bangladesh. There was acute shortage of skilled health service providers in rural areas. There were only 0.58 qualified health worker per 1,000 populations (WHO standard 2.5 per 1,000 populations). Neonatal morality was still high; 32 per 1,000 live births. Only 22% of children receive appropriate care within 24 hours after birth. 76.6% of births still take place at home. Though Government has wide spread network of service delivery facilities but those were not enough for the highly populated country.

As an effort to address the mentioned situation, ASTHA (IRHSCPP) project jointly funded by Novartis and Swisscontact has been initiated to support national workforce policies, strategies, capacity building and skills transfer for producing skilled Community Paramedics (CPs). Community Paramedic course was two-year long course designed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) for developing an additional health workforce in the country’s health care system. The new cadre in the healthcare sector was really contributing to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 (reduce child morality) and 5 (improve maternal health) in the project locations.

 

The project has completed following three (03) intervention objective of this project they are:

1. Strengthening capacity of Community Paramedic Training Institute (CPTI).
2. Strengthening Community Paramedic Program.
3. Awareness development/Market Development for Community Paramedics