Bangladesh offers cash money to improve maternal, child health

DHAKA, March 24 (Xinhua) — Bangladesh will offer cash money to improve health of expectant mothers and under-five children in the country’s poverty prone districts.

To bolster its efforts to improve maternal and child health in the seven northern Bangladesh districts which suffer from Monga, seasonal famine, the country’s Ministry of Health has signed an agreement with the Local Government Ministry to launch a project in this regard.

Under the five-year project titled”Income Support for the Poor” , according to a Health Ministry handout, each woman during pregnancy will get 200 taka for four times when she goes for health check-up. Poor mothers will also get 500 taka per month till her child becomes two years old, it said.

Apart from this, a mother will get 1,000 taka in every three months till her child turns five years old, it added.

The statement said a pregnant woman and mother will also get 500 taka for attending a workshop on child nutrition and development.

Some 600,000 women of the districts are expected to reap benefit from the incentives under the project beginning in April this year.

The initiatives are also expected to immensely contribute to improving maternal and child health in Bangladesh where about 194 women per 100,000 reportedly die in a year.

Bangladeshi Health Minister Mohammed Nasim said Bangladesh has achieved remarkable progress in reducing child and maternal mortality rates over the past years.

“Hope cash money offers will bolster our efforts to achieve more success in improving child and maternal health,” he said at the agreement singing ceremony in Dhaka on Monday.