Introduction: Bangladesh's geriatric health management of the public health facility settings remains quite an unexplored area despite the accelerated aging situation. This study aimed to explore the preparedness of public health facilities and associated challenges, and scopes for geriatric healthcare in Dhaka Division.
Methodology: A mixed-method cross-sectional research design was used to collect data from four purposively selected districts- Dhaka, Tangail, Shariatpur, and Narsingdi. The challenges, and scopes regarding preparedness were assessed through exploratory research design. 21 health facilities from tertiary, secondary, and primary levels were selected for the quantitative survey and 15 were selected for the qualitative interviews.
Findings: The readiness index was 30.54 in our study, indicating a low level of overall preparedness. The readiness score varied across the WHO building blocks: leadership and governance 8.2, financing 13.09, healthcare workforce 18.32, health management and information system 37.69, medicines and technologies 52.8, and service delivery 53.17. The highest readiness score was found for tertiary hospitals (62.28) and the lowest for community clinics (16.94). Dhaka is the best-performing district. The in-depth assessment also found that the tertiary hospitals had advantages but lacked coordination of all the departments, while the root-level facilities lacked effective introduction to the context and innovative primary-level facilities to address geriatric healthcare.
Conclusions: Public healthcare facilities in Bangladesh are not well-prepared to offer services related to geriatric care yet; gaps remain in all the critical pillars of the health systems. In this decade of "Healthy Aging”, the nation must step up its efforts to raise the level of preparedness by recognizing those paucities, addressing them in appropriate plans, programs, and policies, and implementing in a way that not only reduces the gaps in the critical pillars of WHO but also maximizes their effective interaction with one another.
