Gaibandha Correspondent:

In the char areas of Gaibandha, falling sick is not just a health concern; it is often a fight for survival. Scattered across the shifting banks of the Brahmaputra, Jamuna and Teesta rivers, more than 4,00,000 people have been living for years without access to even the most basic healthcare services. Here, rivers and sandbars are not merely part of the landscape; they define how close life and death can be.
A fever, a complicated childbirth, or a sudden accident can quickly turn fatal. Reaching a doctor means crossing wide rivers by boat, walking long sandy paths, and racing against time. Many never make it. Patients often die before reaching a hospital on the mainland.
Visits to several char villages in Phulchari and Sundarganj reveal a harsh reality. Illness in the chars automatically means a dangerous journey. During the monsoon, swollen rivers and strong currents make travel even more perilous. Carrying a sick person on a small boat in bad weather is a risk families take because they have no other option.
The situation is most alarming for pregnant women. Saleha Begum from Phulchari still recalls the day her labour pains began. Her family tried to take her to the hospital, but delays in crossing the river proved fatal. “By the time we reached help, it was too late,” she said quietly. Her child was stillborn, another life lost not to medical complexity, but to distance and neglect.
For many women, such stories are painfully common. In Kapasia Char of Sundarganj, Fulmoti Begum explained how even minor illnesses become crises. “If we have a fever, there is no doctor here. Hospitals are for people in the towns. For those of us in the chars, there is nothing,” she said.
Although several community clinics have been officially established in the char areas, locals say most are non-functional. Some remain closed for days, others lack healthcare workers, and many have no medicine at all. Even basic supplies such as paracetamol or oral rehydration salts are often unavailable. To obtain them, patients must travel for hours by boat to the mainland, and it’s an exhausting journey for the sick, elderly, or pregnant.
Gaibandha’s healthcare crisis is not merely a local issue; it reflects a deeper humanitarian failure affecting some of the country’s most vulnerable communities. Without immediate and sustainable intervention, preventable deaths, maternal mortality, and lifelong disabilities will continue to rise.
The demand of char residents is simple and deeply human: just as political candidates reach these river islands during election season, healthcare services must also find a way to reach the people. Those born between rivers deserve the same chance to live as anyone else.