Kumudini and Australia Build Laboratory for Nursing Students
The Australian High Commissioner in Bangladesh Justin Lee and Mr. Rajiv Prasad Shaha, Managing Director of Kumudini Hospital Nursing Institute (KHNI) jointly inaugurated a modern Nursing Laboratory at KHNI in Mirzapur, Tangail yesterday, 1 August 2011. Kumudini built the laboratory with BDT 20 lac from the Australian High Commission’s Direct Aid Program.
The laboratory will train and equip nurses to handle critical emergency Caesarean-Section cases at the Kumudini hospital. Nurse-midwife students will also gain skills in normal delivery and care of the newborn. The laboratory will greatly enhance the quality of the nurse-midwife profession in Bangladesh.
Speaking at the inauguration the Australian High Commissioner emphasised to nursing students the importance of their profession to the community and recognised Kumudini’s long history of providing health and education services to some of Bangladesh’s neediest people.
Established in the 1940s, Kumudini Hospital provides subsidized health care services to inpatients and outpatients from Mirzapur and the surrounding areas. In 2009, the hospital recorded 49 per cent of child delivery by Caesarean Section (LUSCS). This was due to a high number of referrals of emergency obstetric cases to the hospital following failed home births. The new laboratory will improve nurse-midwives ability to carry out normal deliveries and lessen the number of unnecessary Caesarean Sections.
In 2010-2011, around BDT 260 lac was provided to eleven organisations involved in community development under the Direct Aid Program. Major projects have supported women’s empowerment through skill development; education facilities for children from slum areas; safe water supply and sanitation project in Jessore district; and building a paediatric unit in Savar for children with cerebral palsy.
Australian High Commission, Dhaka
2 August 2011
For further information please contact:
Research and Communications Officer, AHC Dhaka
Tel: 8813105 (413), Mobile: 01713 048599
E-mail: [email protected]