DSK's service delivery model began with primary health care projects. However, it was later realized that secondary health service provision would provide an appropriate complement to the organization's PHC operations. Thus, the aim of the organization became providing dependable hospital services on an affordable basis.
Currently, DSK's primary health care services reach more than twenty thousand slum and low-income groups living in Dhaka and a number of rural regions. In population targeting, special emphasis is given to women and children. DSK began offering tertiary care in 1999 and now runs a 20-bed hospital that offers the following services: Emergency, Mother and Child care, Operation, Diagnostic, Ambulance.
Because of the government's failure to provide adequate health services to the marginalized populations, DSK believes in creating a sustainable and participatory health network, working primarily through borrowing members of its micro-credit program. To achieve this, DSK began motivating its members to set aside Tk 3 (4 cents USD) weekly for health care. It was envisioned that if member-borrowers deposit such an amount voluntarily, then the generated fund would be able to cover 70% of the health care cost resulting from its programs; the remaining 30% could be covered by the ongoing income of the revolving credit program. The program aims to break even in terms of costs of operation, so that service provision can continue independently on a long term basis.
Primary health care activity was stirred around well developed design, covering mainly three components:
- clinic-based activity i.e. immunisation, qualified consultation, essential drug supply and ante-natal care
- home visit by health workers
- training of traditional birth attendants (TBA’s) specifically and more general health awareness training of women from the community
