Strategies for providing healthcare services to street-dwellers in Dhaka city: Evidence from an operations research

This study of experimental pre-post design tested two models, such as static clinic and satellite clinics, for providing PHC services to street-dwellers in the evening through paramedics in Dhaka city during May 2009-April 2010. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used for collecting data. Data were analyzed comparing before and after the implementation of the clinics for the assessment of selected health and family-planning indicators using the statistical t-test. Services received from the model l and model 2 clinics were also compared by calculating the absolute difference to determine the relative effectiveness of one model over another.The use of healthcare services by the street-dwellers increased at endline compared to baseline in both the model clinic areas, and the difference was highly significant (p？<？0.001). Institutional delivery among the female street-dwellers increased at endline compared to baseline in both the clinic areas. The use of family-planning methods among females also significantly (p？<？0.001) increased at endline compared to baseline in both the areas.As the findings of the study showed the promise of this approach, the strategies could be implemented in all other cities of Bangladesh and in other countries which encounter similar problems.