Summary

LAMB is an integrated delivery organization that focuses on providing maternal & child care services through it's hospital and network of community-based clinics and safe delivery units. LAMB thereby has its foundations in providing health services around the communities of the area.

Key program components

LAMB has been working in health and development in the Dinajpur and Rangpur areas of north-west Bangladesh for nearly 30 years. One of the most important aspects of the LAMB model is that staff work across a continuum of care, from households to village level in local clinics, to tertiary care at the hospital. This linked structure appears to encourage users, since the high level of quality control is always present, and the referral system is straightforward and known. The LAMB 150 bed hospital treats more than 55,000 out-patients per year (nearly 200 per day) and more than 8,000 in-patients per year for surgery or medical treatment, and focusing only on the potentially difficult births the service network still delivers more than 4,000 babies per year.

Although LAMB is best known for its hospital, over half of what it does occur in the surrounding community. In the community, LAMB has 23 static clinics and safe delivery units, spread over an area more than 80 km in length. The community activities are however much broader, not only with health related activities, but also covering micro-credit and community development. LAMB mainly works with and for partners for its community work. The partner defines the overall strategic changes it wishes to promote, and then in agreement between LAMB and the partner, and with funding from the partner, LAMB uses its local network and staff to implement the agreed programs.

LAMB has now extended its service into provision of high quality training for third parties, primarily in the health area, and because of its access to a large archive of health and socio-economic data is increasingly called upon to assist in research programs. LAMB now has more than 500 staff – mostly Bangladeshi but with a number of foreign staff to bring additional expertise.

The vision for LAMB began in the early 1950s when a missionary of the American Santal Mission in Dinajpur felt and urgent need for medical work for the hundreds of thousands who had no access to proper healthcare. LAMB thereby has its foundations in providing health services around the communities of the area. Despite its growth, LAMB retains its original mission to serve God through serving the poor and underprivileged, particularly women and children. The blend of religions of our patients reflects fairly closely the proportions of the populations of the whole of Bangladesh. LAMB serves 63,000 patients each year.