Bangladeshis already have a lot of experience with rising waters.

The nation is inundated with monsoonal rain and floods every year.

In the face of this rising tide, one organisation has developed a novel solution.

They’re delivering high quality health care to Bangladesh’s poorest people, in floating hospitals.

For Asia Calling Michael Leung spent a day in one such floating hospital.

Click the play button or watch the videos below to hear/see more. Or click this link to see a few more pictures.

A Hospital Morning

Quick Tour

“It’s about 9.30 am now, and the first patients are just arriving. A woman has come from a nearby village with her baby and the baby has a bad rash on its bottom and its face. They’ll be one of the first people treated this morning.”

The sounds of humming machines and busy nurses and doctors are familiar. But this is no ordinary hospital. It’s also a floating barge.

Called the ‘Lifebuoy Friendship Hospital,’ this 50-meter long vessel sails around Bangladesh’s remote river islands of Bangladesh.

About 3 million people live in these islands, known locally as ‘chors.’ Poverty forces them here, despite the threat of destruction during floods that hit every year.

And if predictions of sea rises due to climate change come true, these floods could be a more permanent reality.

There’s already little support here. No roads, no electricity, and before the floating hospital, certainly no medical facilities service the chors.

Dr. Shaiful Azam is the hospital’s main doctor. He explains that the barge was originally sailed to Bangladesh from France.

There’s an eye clinic, dental facilities, an operating room, a laboratory and even an X-ray machine.

Space is tight, but the hospital is well equipped and well-staffed.

Azam sees up anywhere between 50 and 150 patients in a single day.

He says that most government hospitals suffer from a lack of funds, so qualified staff won’t work there.

“There might be some doctors and specialists in Gaibandha hospital, they should be recruited. This is the usual procedure. But people are not coming here. They are not coming here … they need to earn money. If he is in Dhaka they can earn so much money.”

A lack of manpower isn’t the only problem for those in need of treatment. With no roads and many rivers to cross, the distances they must travel for treatment are great.

Anwara is one such patient. Her foot is so swollen she can barely walk. For treatment at the floating hospital, fellow villagers carried Anwara on a stretcher from her village two hours away.

“We know we can get good treatment at this hospital. If the hospital wasn’t here we would have had to go to the Gaibandha government hospital. We are very poor, and treatment there would be far too expensive for us.”

Had she gone to the government hospital she would have had taken a local transport boat, crossed two rivers and then ridden another eight kilometers in a cycle rickshaw.

All of this adds to the cost of already unaffordable treatment.

At the floating hospital however, Anwara pays only a small fee for her treatment which will probably take three or four days.

The rest of her bill is paid by a major international food corporation, which is finding most of the hospitals operating costs.

In the capital Dhaka, workers are currently putting the final touches on a second floating hospital.

This time, the charitable foundation of an international airline has funded the project. It will cost about $750,000 dollars to build and another $150,000 to run it each year.

Runa Khan is the director of non-profit organisation ‘Friendship’, which established the floating hospitals.

“Health, you see, is one of the most essential components, if not the most essential component, to any development project. Because when you are suffering you cannot do anything. There is no development intervention possible when you are suffering.”

The sufferings are numerous along Bangladesh’s vast river networks, home to some of the world’s poorest. And if global temperatures continue to rise, more snow will melt from the peaks of the Himalayas causing bigger floods downstream in Bangladesh.

And the threat of a rising sea could also force tens of millions from their homes permanently.

This is why boat-based development initiatives are starting to take off in Bangladesh.

Khan says that using corporate donations has made innovative ideas like her hospital possible.

“Also, these corporate companies have another advantage. They are very open to innovative ideas, they have only one target: you should actually be beneficial, it should be useful and you should see the result directly in front of you. This is what the private sector can do, including the NGOs. They can bring out models of innovation which would help the government to replicate models elsewhere. Through these innovative models we can take fund risks.”

The Lifebuoy Friendship Hospital sees over 50,000 patients each year. And the second hospital is expected to serve a similar number in Northern Bangladesh.

Despite the looming specter of climate change, projects like Khan’s show people there are ways to deal with climate problem.

The evidence is clear that money was transferred. Sheikh Selim, Hasina’s brother, told authorities that he passed one third of the money to Hasina in the presence of her sister. And that’s why she’s in jail now, even if the original businessman didn’t name Hasina in the charge originally.

Listen to my piece for more:

After experiencing the effect of the cyclone with our own eyes, we recorded our final reflections. It’s also one of our crew’s last day in Bangladesh—Michael Mangano—and he gave some thoughts on what he’s seen in the country.

In the end we decided to support the village of Dhangmari with Tk 40,000 ($575 USD) for fishing boats, enabling a few villagers to make more money and support themselves. We also decided to earmark another Tk5,000 ($85 USD) for instruments for the cultural shows, and the leftover Tk20,000 will go to an orphange.

Today we also learn a little more about the cast — who are the people putting these podcasts together, and why have we come to Bangladesh? We discuss again, the ethical philosophy of doing relief work yourself, or is it all just pointless, given the current state of affairs in Bangladesh?

Background
Before coming, donors who were friends of Michael Mangano gave $1,000 for us to bring directly to people in need from the cyclone, as something to do while Michael visited Bangladesh for research purposes (and to have a bit of travel fun).

Is this the approach we should use? Should travellers approach local relief organisations and NGOs with the goal of helping Bangladesh get back on its feet? Tune in to the below podcast for more.

Background
Before coming, donors who were friends of Michael Mangano gave $1,000 for us to bring directly to people in need from the cyclone, as something to do while Michael visited Bangladesh for research purposes (and to have a bit of fun).

I’m getting a pretty good kick working in sound again. It’s an “old” new medium for me, much more visceral and far less removed than photography. Please have a listen to know more.