Bangladesh

The Bangladesh Emergency Care System Improvement (BECSI) project is entirely focused on promoting emergency care across Bangladesh. It will be carried out in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and key Emergency Care stakeholders in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has a population of 160 million and is amongst the poorest countries in Asia. It has some of the worst health indices and the burden of injury is substantial.

The incidence of disasters is extreme, including cyclones, floods, famine, epidemics, building collapses, bomb blasts and complex emergencies, such as the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis. There is no effective emergency care system, so there is minimal resilience to these disasters.

The key emergency and trauma care stakeholders in Bangladesh remain desperate to improve emergency care in Bangladesh, starting with:

1. A national consensus on current priority actions for emergency care system improvement
2. The introduction of an emergency care system improvement program

The BECSI project will use the WHO Emergency Care System Assessment (ECSA) process which has been conducted in over 30 countries, yielding feasible priority actions and practical next steps for emergency care system development.

The BECSI project will promote the development of emergency care in Bangladesh by:

• Providing a national forum for multi-sector (government, policy, hospital, management, disaster response, pre-hospital, clinicians) engagement, consensus and an agreed report for emergency care system improvement, and
• Supporting national representation and participation in the introduction of an Emergency Care System Quality Improvement program.

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The BECSI project is being led by A/Prof Gerard O’Reilly, an Emergency Physician from Alfred Health. This project is funded by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) Foundation.