Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus on Bangkok mission for latest social project

Prof Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, visited Thonburi Bamrungmuang Hospital on Friday to learn about its ground-breaking efforts to extend quality medical treatment to people at all social levels. 

Speaking on stage, Yunus said he would use the lessons he learned to set up hospitals in his home country of Bangladesh. The new hospitals would deploy high-tech innovations to make quality medical care affordable for all Bangladeshi citizens while also reducing waiting times, he added.

His main idea is to save bed space by treating and discharging patients quickly, turning hospitals into social businesses that are self-reliant and profitable.

The health service in Bangladesh suffers from a chronic shortage of medics, with only about 3.06 doctors per 10,000 people – three times fewer than Thailand. 

Bangladesh is also short of nurses, with only one nurse for every three doctors, Yunus explained, adding that he had set up a nursing college to boost that figure. 

He said it was also difficult to get medical care beyond the capital of Dhaka, as doctors weren’t keen to set up their practices outside of big cities.

The Covid-19 pandemic piled further pressure on Bangladesh’s meagre healthcare resources.

Prof Yunus remarked that pharmaceutical companies should not own the copyrights to Covid-19 vaccines as this deprived poorer countries of protection against the virus.

A handful of companies had made billions of dollars in profit from the vaccines, he said 

When they first came out, “10 per cent of the richest countries in the world bought most of the vaccines, leaving out poorer countries. This method should be abandoned,” Yunus said. “Everyone should be able to produce a Covid-19 vaccine and everyone should have access to the Covid-19 vaccine.’’

The man famous for lifting millions out of poverty with his microloans projects offered one last message to his Bangkok audience.

“Making money is happiness but making others happy is super-happiness,” he said.