Health, Policy, Practitioner, Research, Other Gonoshasthaya Kendra (The People’s Health Centre) Founder of The People's Health Centre Bangladesh
He spent his early childhood in Kolkata and later his family settled in Dhaka. After attending Nabakumar School at Bakshibazar, he studied at Dhaka College and continued his studies focusing on medicine at Dhaka Medical College. As the general secretary of the Dhaka Medical College students’ union, he held a press conference to expose the corruption at the hospital. He was involved in setting up the 480-bed Bangladesh Field Hospital for freedom fighters and the refugees. The hospital was run by a team of Bangladeshi doctors, medical students and volunteers. This experience in the field hospital led him to believe that an effective health care delivery system can be developed in rural Bangladesh by training women as a primary health care delivery platform. This achieved worldwide credibility when it was eventually published in Lancet.
In 1972 Dr. Chowdhury setup the Gonoshasthaya Kendra. The center focuses on providing basic healthcare to the rural areas. The center also runs a university, vocational training center, agricultural cooperatives, hospital, a printing press, community schools and a generic drug manufacturing plant. Gonoshasthaya Kendra has been very successful in providing family planning services, lowering maternal, infant mortality rates. Though limited in its reach, it pioneered the introduction of cheaper generic drugs. In 1973, Gonoshasthaya Kendra introduced a Rural Healthcare Insurance System, the first of its kind in Bangladesh.
Chowdhury is currently a Bangladeshi public health activist who founded Gonoshasthaya Kendra (meaning the People's Health Center in Bengali), a rural health care organization.



*informaton from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zafrullah_Chowdhury