Bollovepur Hospital is situated in Bollovepur village in Meherpur district. Sister Gillian M Rose is the director. It has always been a single storied 50 bedded hospital in the depths of the Bangladesh countryside, three miles from the Indian border, 100 miles or so north of Calcutta. There are no ‘high-tech’ or ‘modcons’ apart from a very unreliable electric supply, with running water supplied by tanks on the roof. But despite these handicaps the hospital serves the sick of a wide area, both poor and better-off alike and provides the only maternity services for the women of the densely populated villages. It also has a training centre for training junior nurses and midwives.
Community Maternal Health is the main thrust of the work and has gathered momentum over the years, and now a total of 30 village ante-natal clinics bring ante-natal care and health and nutrition teaching to women of a wide area.
Village midwives (traditional birth attendants) are also being trained in the hospital. With the help of these trained midwives the hospital has started clinics in some villages.