Dhaka, Bangladesh Global: Gonoshasthaya Kendra founder and freedom fighter Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury passed away on Tuesday night. He was 81. Dr Zafrullah breathed his last around 11 pm at Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital, said GSK press adviser Jahangir Alam Mintu.
Earlier on Monday morning the veteran physician was put on life support at the hospital as his health condition deteriorated. A medical board, led by Professor Brigadier General (Retd) Dr Mamun Mustafi, was formed on Sunday. Dr Zafrullah had long been suffering from kidney-related complications.
Zafrullah Chowdhury was in the UK for his post-graduate studies in medicine when the War of Liberation broke out in 1971. Still barely 30 years old, he would return to set up, in collaboration with Captain Akhtar Ahmed, the Bangladesh Field Hospital, a 480-bed facility for freedom fighters and the refugees.
Run by a team of Bangladeshi doctors, medical students and volunteers, and women with no previous training in healthcare who were trained within days to help out the patients, it was the only one of its kind. The idea behind that revolutionary offering evolved into a philosophy for public health delivery after independence, when Gonoshasthya Kendra was born.
He was also the architect of the country's first National Drug Policy, adopted in 1982, that is still felt to be a central instrument in the country's success in the field of public health - an unforgivingly difficult task for the size of the population in Bangladesh.
Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury was born on December 27, 1941. He spent his early childhood in Kolkata and later his family settled in Bangladesh. He founded the Gonoshasthya Kendra in 1972. The proposal was first presented in a concept paper in Dhaka titled "Basic Health Care in Rural Bangladesh."
Zafrullah was his parents' 10th child. After finishing his education at Nabakumar School in Bakshibazar, he attended Dhaka College. He became acquainted with communist political views while attending Dhaka Medical College to study medicine.
He completed his MBBS degree in 1964 and moved to the UK to pursue post-graduate studies in general and vascular surgery but returned to fight the war, using his background to set up the Bangladesh Field Hospital.
In 1985, he won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in Community Leadership category for his work on the Drug Policy 1982. He received the Right Livelihood Prize in 1992 for his exceptional work for health and human development.
While constrained in scope, GK was a pioneer in the development of less expensive generic medications. A Rural Healthcare Insurance System was initially implemented in Bangladesh by Gonoshasthaya Kendra in 1973 under Zafrullah’s leadership.
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