“The taps in the school all ran dry, and I needed to change pads every four to five hours for three or four days and hence I had to remain at home. One or two of my teachers were concerned about the gaps in my attendance and I was asked why I remained absent so often. Unfortunately, I did not have the courage to broach the subject, and I remained guiltily silent and accepted the blame.”
In March 2009, RESULTS Canada led an educational delegation of Canadian parliamentarians to Bangladesh. The intent of the trip was to highlight global poverty but also to focus on hope and solutions. Diarrhoeal disease is one of Bangladesh’s main health concerns. According to Bangladeshi health authorities, it is responsible for about 9 percent of deaths among infants under 12 months old, and 10 percent of deaths among those under-five. In total, about 100 children in Bangladesh die every day from diarrhoeal disease.1
When the RESULTS delegation was in Dhaka it was pre-monsoon season. Temperatures were beginning to sky-rocket and the supply of safe drinking water was in short supply. Each spring at this time, Bangladesh faces the height of what is widely called its “diarrhoeal season”. At one hospital we visited in Dkaha, the ICDDR,B, more than 700 patients with diarrhoeal disease were being admitted each day. Row after row of patients in cots – often mothers with children in their arms – were being treated with oral rehydration and intravenous therapies and other interventions that work. At least three tents had been set up in the hospital’s parking lot to cope with the influx. It was overwhelming, but through the use of simple interventions doctors were succeeding in saving the vast majority of those who made it through their doors.
We also saw preventative measures and hand washing promotion programs in villages that provided tremendous cause for hope. Women in rural villages are being trained to educate others in their communities about simple and effective health interventions. We sat in on village learning circles where these remarkable women trained others in the basics of effective hand washing – using props that include soap and water, illustrated posters, and two simple bowls to contain water for pre-and-post hand washing. Bangladesh is not unique. In communities around the world, in small village learning circles or in schools, the promotion of hand washing is key to curbing disease, illness and deaths.
