Bollobhpur Hospital is a small 65-bed village hospital situated in an undeveloped border area of Bangladesh. It caters for the health needs of people living in the heavily populated villages stretching to the border with India three miles away.
The Church of Bangladesh sees Bollobhpur Hospital as a key part of its mission. Muslims, Hindus and Christians alike all use and appreciate the health care services the hospital provides under the watchful eye of its director, Sister Gillian Rose.
Bollobhpur Hospital runs a three-year junior nurse/midwifery training course for women and an eighteen-month laboratory technician training course for men. The hospital takes in 16 to 18 trainee nurses twice a year. Students for these courses come mostly from rural communities, of which an estimated 35% of people live below the poverty line. Those who complete the training very quickly find good, stable, well-paid employment once they have done so. With this, they are able to support their families and help their younger siblings acquire an education. Bollobhpur trained nurses and laboratory technicians can be found in government service, private clinics and hospitals, industrial and home nursing and in community health programmes all over Bangladesh.
The hospital also spearheads a community health programme consisting of four outstation village clinics and a team of six community health workers who visit the villages in the areas surrounding the hospital. The clinics are staffed by experienced midwives who were all trained at the hospital, backed up by a team of student midwives on rotation during their training.
USPG is a long-term partner of Bollobhpur Hospital, and funds both the running costs of the hospital and the nurses’ training.
