Grameen GC Eye Hospital - Barisal in Barishal Sadar, Barisal

In order to bring the vulnerable people above the poverty line it is very important to address their health issues. It is seen from the experience that a significant number of people remain under poverty line, despite their continuous efforts of coming out from the poverty. Whenever they succeeded to cross the poverty line and fight to remain out of the poverty, in many cases, the health problem for the incumbent or a family member pushes them to the poverty again and again.

In its long experience Grameen Bank (GB) realized that without improvement of health care facilities to the rural poor only through Micro-credit, it is not possible to ensure keeping them out of poverty permanently. In order to get a quick result from micro credit and to see their productive life, GB has been initiated an action research project to develop a Rural Health Program (RIAP) in 1993. Grameen Kalyan (GK) was intended to provide quality primary health care services to GB members as well as non-member preventive and promotional health services with special emphasis on family planning, reproductive health, maternal and child health. One of the important objective is to make the program self-sustainable and ensure to reach the qualitative Health care services to the un-reached within affordable cost.

Considering the health care situation in Bangladesh and its impact in the poverty issue, Prof. Muhammad Yunus decided to create a separate entity  for providing affordable healthcare facilities to the low-income population of Bangladesh especially leaving in the rural area. With this idea the "Grameen Health Care Services Ltd. (GHS) - A Social Business Enterprise is established as a no loss Company.

Objectives

GHS is established in collaboration with four Grameen Companies namely, Grameen Bayabosha Bikash (GBB), Grameen Kalyan (GK), Grameen Shakti (GS) and Grameen Telecom (GD) to achieve the following objectives:

1.  To establish and operate hospitals, community health centers, mobile health clinics, lab and pathological centers etc. to ensure quality health care services.
2.  To establish and operate health schools, medical collages, medical universities, training centers for doctors, nurses and other health related people.
3. To organize regular courses, training programs for the doctors, nurses and other medical staff for improvement of their skill, standard, and quality.
4.  To undertake research and cooperate with other research institutions for identifying various problem in health sector along with find out the remedies and improving the situation.
5.  To establish and operate pharmaceutical industries, industry of medical appliances to make them available to the people within affordable price.
6.  To organize meetings, seminars, workshops, symposiums, exhibitions, campaigns for exchanging views and raising awareness among the people about health and treatment.
7.  To take all other related measures those will contribute improving of health sector.