Of a health icon and a freedom fighter

In the month of Independence, the names of the medical professionals who have a great contribution to the Liberation War must be talked of. Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury is a great freedom fighter and a public health icon in Bangladesh. Dr Chowdhury is known more for his work in formulating the Bangladesh National Drug Policy in 1982.
 He is the founder of Gonoshasthaya Kendra (People's Health Center), a rural healthcare organisation. He was born on December 27, 1941 at Raojan , an upazila of Chittagong district. He spent his early childhood in Calcutta and later his family settled in Dhaka. He was one of the ten children born to his parents. After attending at Nabakumar School in Bakshibazar, he studied at Dhaka College. He studied Medicine in Dhaka Medical College, where he got involved with leftist political ideologies.
As the general secretary of the Dhaka Medical College students' union, he held a press conference to expose the corruption at the hospital. After a turbulent student life, he finished his MBBS degree in 1964 and left for the UK for post-graduate studies in general and vascular surgery.
"In spite of being the 2nd plastic surgeon of Pakistan, I preferred to take training to become the first cardio-vascular surgeon in the history of Pakistan.  Primarily, I passed my FRCS very quickly as I wished to come back to Bangladesh as soon as possible. My examination date was fixed in May, 1971. In the mean time, I left London to India for the Liberation War. In India, I noticed that there were not any medical facilities for our freedom fighters.  Physicians had to play an important role in the battlefield. Mr. Tajuddin and General Osmani were informed of the crisis.
I felt that if the injured fighters do not get sufficient treatment, they would lose their strength to continue the fight. But the sector commanders told me that they would need arms and weapons. I claimed that besides arms and weapons, medical camp and hospital facilities are also important in this situation. Then we started a hospital for the treatment of the freedom fighters named "Bangladesh Field Hospital," said Dr Chowdhury.
He added that they started first with 100 beds. Then they expanded to 480 beds. The total service was free. This was the only field hospital for Bangladeshi fighters. The hospital was run by a team of Bangladeshi doctors, medical students and volunteers. Women with no previous training in healthcare were trained within few days to help out the patients. This experience in the field hospital led him to believe that an effective healthcare delivery system can be developed in rural Bangladesh by training women as a primary healthcare delivery platform. This achieved worldwide credibility when it was eventually published in The Lancet.
"After the end of the Liberation War, we came back to Bangladesh. I ordered to my colleagues that war had finished, now go back to your home. Some of them refused to go back. Most of them were minority females. Then the Bangladesh Field Hospital turned into Gonoshasthaya Kendra. Bangabandhu named the hospital and he allocated 20 acres of land for the hospital.
Dr Chowdhury believes that poor people will get rid of poverty by the means of education. From this belief, he founded Gono Bishwabidyalay. Students from poor families are now able to get their higher studies in this institute.