Our Programs
Our Mission Statement
Through God’s grace and love, Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh brings hope and promise to the people of southern Bangladesh with a focus on maternal and child health care and community development programs.
Health Care | Community Development | Safe Water & Sanitation |
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LHCB has established a medical facility in the southern village of Dumki with inpatient and out- patient departments. Mobile clinics bring health care to the surrounding villages. Since 1995 the clinic has welcomed patients. The hospital has grown to 25 inpatient beds, with a surgery suite, pharmacy, and newly updated laboratory facilities. In 2006 12,246 patients were treated by the LHCB medical staff in Dumki and the surrounding villages. In Bangladesh, 92% of mothers deliver at home. In 1996 to reduce the risks of complications during pregnancy and delivery, LHCB established a training program for Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) to assist safe child birth. To date LHCB has trained 300 TBAs who serve their own community people with confidence. | The community development programs focus on providing education in health, economics and literacy for the women in the surrounding villages. Micro savings groups allow women to take out loans to start small business projects that generate income for themselves and their families. Presently, LHCB supports and educates 300 savings groups with nearly 5000 active members. | Bangladesh is a land of abundant water with 1/3 to 1/2 of the land mass under water. But the ground water is unclean and shallow wells are contaminated with arsenic in many parts of the country. Deep tube wells are necessary for clean water. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America partners with LHCB in the Safe Water and Arsenic Mitigation project (SWAM) allowing drilling of deep tube wells in the heavily contaminated districts surrounding Dumki. |
Health Care
Inpatient Care, Outpatient Care, Mobile Clinics, Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) Training
In 1995, Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh started with a small dedicated staff in a rental property in the southern village of Dumki. In 1997 the mission project was moved to its present site and there is an inpatient ward for women and children, an operating room, and a separate labor/delivery area. The outpatient department is housed in an adjoining wing of the building and has a central check-in/ waiting room area surrounded by the doctors’ offices, a small emergency room, a pharmacy, and the recently improved and expanded laboratory facilities. Women and children receive innoculations for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, tuberculosis, and hepatitis in the new Vaccination Room completed in 2006.
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Mobile Clinics
In early 1998 the River People Boat Project, sponsored by Normandale Lutheran Church(Edina, Minnesota) allowed LHCB to bring medical care and community development opportunities to remote villages far out in the delta. For 6 years this boat ministry served the needs of these remote villages. With improved and expanded roadways and acquisition of new vehicles, LHCB mobile clinics continue to make regular visits by van each week to even more villages. A team of five members including a doctor, nurse/technician, pharmacist, cashier and driver make village mobile clinic visits 2 days a week.
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Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) Training
In Bangladesh 92% of pregnant women deliver their babies at home. LHCB identified the need for training midwives to improve the health of these mothers and babies during pregnancy, labor and delivery, and after delivery. The training program began in 1997, and provides two weeks of intensive training followed by monthly continuing education for the next three years. The TBAs assist safe child birth, provide pre- and postnatal care, and identify high risk complications referring these pregnant women to the hospital in Dumki for delivery. Over 300 Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) have been trained and provide a crucial link to the health of their community.
Community Development
Women’s Savings and Credit Groups, Income Generating Activities, School Children Health Education, Adolescent Girls Health Education, ESL
Formation of micro savings groups in the villages allows women to take out small business loans to establish income generating activities for themselves and their families. LHCB has community development program offices and supervisors in 5 districts. Group Organizers visit the surrounding villages by motorcycle, by rickshaw and on foot, organizing and supporting the Women’s Savings and Credit Groups. Each village group has 16-20 members who elect a president, secretary and cashier. The LHCB Group Organizer visits regularly to conduct classes and assist in the business and planning for group members.
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The program is modeled after the micro loans program developed by Bangaldeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, recent recipients of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. However, the LHCB Savings and Credit Program is funded by the women themselves with no outside loans. A woman may save a few handfuls of rice to sell and will place a few Taka($.10) in the group’s interest earning savings account. The group then decides who may take out a loan, what the interest rate will be, and when the loan is to repaid. There are countless stories of successful income generating ventures by these women and their families. Loan money has been used to buy chickens, cows, rickshaws, sewing machines, and other goods and services used to improved family income. There are presently 300 Savings and Credit groups with over 5,000 members.
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In addition to the opportunity of being lifted out of poverty through microsavings and credit, group members receive basic education in literacy, math, and simple economics. They learn about child care, food and nutrition, safe water and sanitation, family planning through birth control, antenatal and postnatal care, drugs and narcotics. LHCB has a health curriculum that is taught to the children in the village schools. It is an 8 week long course for children in grades 3 – 5 that has proven an effective way of delivering essential health messages to the community. LHCB is in the process of developing curriculum for Adolescent Girls Health Education including hygiene, health, delaying marriage and child bearing, and protection against repression and human trafficking.
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English as a Second Language (ESL) courses are offered for the development of English language skills for the project staff members, their preschool-aged children, and young community children. LHCB is the only organization within the surrounding districts offering this opportunity of learning English for its staff members and children.
Safe Water & Sanitation
Bangladesh is located in the delta of three major rivers – the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna. The country is criss-crossed by 230 rivers. Flooding is a yearly occurrence during and after the monsoon season (June-October). The Ganges is a particularly polluted river and a breeding ground for cholera. In addition, the water from rain and the melting snows in the Himalayas are contaminated with naturally occuring arsenic and accumulate in the low-lying areas in Bangladesh. In the 1970’s, aid agencies and western engineers dug shallow tube wells to address the problem of surface water contamination and pollution. However, the naturally occurring arsenic in these shallow tube wells was not discovered until the early 1990’s. Arsenic is four times more poisonous than mercury. Drinking water contaminated with arsenic causes chronic toxicity. Almost all organs of the body are affected with clinical symptoms appearing after 6 months to 2 years or more, depending on the amount ingested over time. Several organ systems of the body can be affected. The skin will show pigment changes, thickened plaques, and various types of cancer. The liver will become enlarged, cirrhotic, with secondary jaundice and hypertension. There can be hearing loss and peripheral nerve damage in the hands, feet, arms and legs. There can be poor circulation to hand and feet with temperature intolerances and color changes in the skin. Goiter or diabetes mellitus may occur if the thyroid gland and pancreas are involved. In the late stages of toxicity, there can be cancer of the skin, lungs and bladder. Read more about arsenic poisoning at Wikipedia.org.
Although technically the arsenic problem is simple to solve, the number of people affected and the poverty of the country make it an overwhelming challenge. It is estimated that 70 million people are at risk of arsenic poisoning. Arsenic can be removed from the water with sand filters and chemical de-arsination techniques. Or, as LHCB has chosen to do, dig deep tube wells over 600 feet deep through an impermeable ground layer to the uncontaminated water beneath. Attention to proper grouting of these wells is essential to prevent mixing of the clean, deep ground water with shallow contaminated water. The hospital is located in the village of Dumki, Patuakhali District, identified as a contamination free district. LHCB partners with ELCA’s Global Mission in the Safe Water and Arsenic Mitigation Project (SWAM) in the Gopalganj, Madaripur and Barisal districts digging deep tube wells in these highly contaminated areas. During the first 2 years of this project, 152 wells were dug, and in 2007, LHCB will drill seventy-two more wells. Read more about arsenic contamination of groundwater at Wikipedia.org.
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In addition to the digging of deep tube wells, LHCB focuses on different sub districts each year, targeting sanitation and the installation of latrines. With the digging of a deep tube well, installation of latrines, and health education for the women and children, the improved health and well being of entire villages is possible.