Are 'Village Doctors' in Bangladesh a curse or a blessing?

Bangladesh is one of the health workforce crisis countries in the world. In the face of an acute shortage of trained professionals, ensuring healthcare for a population of 150 million remains a major challenge for the nation. To understand the issues related to shortage of health workforce and healthcare provision, this paper investigates the role of various healthcare providers in provision of health services in Chakaria, a remote rural area in Bangladesh. Photo courtesy: Goggle Bangladesh is suffering from lack of adequate doctors, especially in the rural areas. Most of the posts for the doctors of the rural health facilities are vacant. Moreover, the absence rate of doctors is very high in the peripheral health centres. On the other hand, urban centres are overcrowded with doctors in the hospitals and their own private clinics. Many previous studies tried to identify the factors behind the dichotomous reality of the placement of doctors in rural and urban areas, but few of them...