The Boats of Life in Bangladesh

endeavor
 The Boats of Life
Faizul Khan Tanim returns from Narayanganj, fascinated by the Lifebuoy-Friendship, a floating hospital, which is considered a breakthrough in medical services for the marginalized population and which inspired to build an even bigger ship - Rangdhonu

 Pictures provided by : Friendship

The first sight of the ships Lifebuoy-Friendship Hospital (LFH), Emirates-Friendship Hospital or the Rangdhonu-Friendship Hospital (Rangdhonu is Rainbow in English), can very easily be deemed as elements of peace, love and understanding. Bearing the colours green and crimson, on bright sunny or even dull and cloudy days, the ships basks in the glowing light or bathes in the beautiful rain and looks like institutions of happiness and care. Wrapped with the energy mesh of the phrase ‘get well soon’ and the big hulls and deck, it spreads an over powering message for the distressed population of our coastal belts and beyond. Even at night, when the full moon shines, fireflies play, and the insects make music with their sound; the ships docked stands as blissful structures of modern time.

Friendship, an NGO founded by its current Executive Director Runa Khan, it has been working for a decade, specializing in working with at-risk communities in various
parts of the country including the isolated chars of the Jamuna and Brahmaputra River in Gaibandha and Kurigram districts situated in the northern part or Bangladesh; and cyclone affected southern districts of Bagerhat, Patuakhali, and Barguna. Friendship’s journey started with the LFH.

This organization has worked in an integrated approach bringing health (directly to over 1.2 million beneficiaries), relief and disaster prevention, education, microfinance and preservation of culture in some of the most vulnerable regions of the planet.

Friendship currently has three ships in its fleet, two of them – LFH and Emirates-Friendship Hospital presently in service and the third and newly acquired Rangdhonu-Friendship Hospital which is undergoing transformation in to the biggest floating hospital in the country will hopefully join operations in Friendship’s flotilla from November this year.

If we look back at their journeys, The LFH was originally an oil barge that has been converted to a fully equipped floating hospital with all the necessary medical equipment for providing effective primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare services.

The river barge was sailed from its country of origin France, to Bangladesh by Mr. Yves Marre. It is narrated an adventurous journey which was the first of its kind, making a world record and reached Bangladesh via our Mongla Port on May 14 1994.

It was learnt from a video documentary that conversion work of LFH began in November 2000 with support from Unilever Bangladesh, CIDA and other donors, and the hospital opened its door in December 2001. From then onwards, LFH started providing regular on board primary and secondary healthcare services. It also organised specialised health camps every month to provide advanced secondary healthcare, where prominent local and international doctors volunteered their time to perform medical surgeries and consultations at the hospital.

The LFH and Emirates-Friendship Hospital offers emergency healthcare after natural calamities such as floods and cyclones. Bangladesh is extremely over-populated and people dwells on whatever property they find…be it near the coastal belts, inside forests or even on risky chars (scattered sand banks which rises from rivers and seas) or islands. LFH and Emirates-Friendship’s continuous services have enabled char inhabitants to have access to quality healthcare, who previously had little or no access.

After a decade of providing medical services, the LFH was docked for extensive maintenance and renovation work in 2011 to have a refurbished look and be equipped with more modern equipment and facilities. It is now ready to again serve communities that need its services.

Rangdhonu, a much bigger ship and after 22 years of traversing the world’s oceans in defence of the environment, under the bold leadership of Greenpeace which was known as the Rainbow Warrior II, will now serve the coastal belt of Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal delivering primary and secondary medical assistance to some of the most vulnerable communities of Bangladesh just like Friendship’s other two ships of life.

Speaking to Mohammad Enamul Haque, programme manager (Education) of Friendship, said, “Both the LFH and Emirates-Friendship Hospitals are of the same size with eight patient beds, two operation theatres (OT) and together they carry out almost 2,000 to 4,000 different types of surgeries each year. The surgeries range from the very basic to the complex ones, like eye, plastic, orthopaedic, paediatric, visceral, general, gynaecological and more. The crew consists of a combined medical and general team of 18 passionate and dedicated staff. The 2 doctors and 4 nurses on board each ship together cover 80 to 100 patients a day”.

“Our main ships are always supported by small satellite boats which reaches the very inside of remote areas, where the big boats cannot enter and provide support to the vulnerable and exposed people. Rangdhonu-Friendship due to its bigger size will support and accommodate much better and greater facilities than the other two”, Haque added.
It was known that over the years, numerous doctors and specialists from around the world have come to the LFH, not only to treat patients, but to also share their expertise with the medical crew on board. Their visits were largely made possible by the Emirates Airlines Foundation’s much needed support of flying medical personnel and supplies to the hospital ship. Their generosity soon enabled the LFH to host 8-10 international health camps a year, each allowing 200-250 operations mainly for burns, cleft-lips, club feet, orthopaedic problems and cataract. In addition to local specialists visiting regularly, medical teams from organizations such as HumaniTerra International, Doctors without Borders, HELP Doctor, German Doctor and The Mount Sinai Medical Center come regularly to conduct the camps.

Friendship is also engaged in to educating the masses of this country and since we are a riverine nation, they felt necessary to hold an exhibition on 2010, named Traditional Boats of Bangladesh showcasing over 50 different types of traditional model boats, which were handcrafted maintaining every single feature and detail, depicting the daily lives of the traditional boat builders.

To know more on Friendship and its endeavours, one can log on to http://www.friendship-bd.org/.

This article was first published in The Independent's Weekend Magazine July 13 Friday 2012 - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=62&date=2012-07-13