Dhaka Shishu Hospital

Dhaka Shishu Hospital a hospital for the children, established in Dhaka in March 1972 by the government of Bangladesh with the help of Save the Children Fund of UK and World Vision of Bangladesh. It started in a private house at dhanmondi, Dhaka with 50 beds, and an outpatient department in a tent at a nearby location in Sukrabad. In 1975, the government decided to upgrade it into a full-fledged children';s hospital with 250 beds, expandable to 500 beds, and to construct a new building for it at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, a satellite town of the city. The hospital started functioning at its new site in 1977. It is an autonomous institution and is run by a management board formed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Its aims and objectives include healthcare for poor children, maintenance of a clinic for immunization of children, education of mothers in feeding and elementary hygiene, motivation of parents for family planning, promotion of research in child heath, and training of doctors, nurses and paramedics.

In 1983, the hospital opened an academic wing named bangladesh institute of child health to conduct postgraduate paediatric courses such as FCPS (Fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons), MD (Doctor of Medicine), MS (Master of Surgery), DCH (Diploma in Child Health), and various certificate courses in paediatrics. The different departments of the hospital are community paediatrics, neonatalogy, gastroenterology and nutrition, nephrology, cardiology and rheumatology, haematology and ontology, respiratory medicine, endocrinology, developmental paediatrics, and neurology. An intensive care unit for children, the first of its kind in the country, was established in the hospital in 1992.

The hospital is run by government';s yearly grant-in-aid, its own income, and occasional donations from national and international organisations such as National Women';s Federation, Food for the Hungry International, Japan International Cooperation Agency, and Korean International Cooperation Agency. In 1999, Dhaka Shishu Hospital had 212 non-paying beds, 88 paying beds and 45 cabins, and the average occupancy rate was about 90%. That year, it had 94 doctors, 136 nurses and 21 paramedics. At present, it serves about 400 outdoor patients daily. [S M Mahfuzur Rahman] [Rahman, S M Mahfuzur  Professor of International Business, Dhaka University]