BKMEA Healthcare Centre
Most of the knitwear workers, particularly female workers, in Bangladesh tend to have very little education as they drop out of school early to help support their families, and some are illiterate. So they have lake of awareness about health & safety issue. They are more malnourished than men at every stage of life, but this phenomenon is more visible in the case of adolescent girls & pregnant mother. But the safety & health condition record of Bangladeshi factories is unacceptable and requires our collective effort. We can prevent future tragedies & improve health condition of workers by consolidating and amplifying our individual efforts to bring about real and sustained progress.
Realizing the situation we have taken an initiative to give health service to the every worker, who does not have money to afford treatment. This will be a service-oriented business program to take health care for worker, who works in the Apparel industries. Our motive is to reach up health service to the door to door working people. The program is to give health service as well as entrepreneur initiative.
The BKMEA Healthcare Centre started functioning on 23 November 2009 at BSCIC, Fatulla, Narayanganj to treat the poor RMG workers of the knitwear sector. In average it receives 25 patients per day and it has treated more than 30, 000 patients till date. Its existing activities are a follows:
- Free Consultancy Service by a qualified registered Physician and a skilled Paramedic (Nurse) from 10 am to 5 pm except Govt. Holidays.
- Free medicine service.
- Minor surgeries like needle removal, management of burn and wound patients.
- Follow up services.
Under the labor laws of Bangladesh and the standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO), factories must provide healthcare to their workers. Most factories in Bangladesh are now appointing medical doctors or nurses to care for their workers. Not only that, they are also linked with healthcare program of the government or non-government organizations. In this place, BKMEA’s Healthcare Centre has been unique in character and is providing laudable services to the workers, who are very poor and dearth of monetary support to get treatment.
So, BKMEA is rightfully committed to making the knitwear sector of Bangladesh a vibrant force of CSR programmes!