Dr Jannatul Ferdous
Medical Consultant
Medical consultant to Abul Khair Health Care, seeing patients at the free Friday clinic and at mobile campaigns. qualifications and specialty
Programs · Healthcare
The free Friday clinic
Every Friday for the last seven years we have opened a free clinic at Baishmouja Bazar. Come between 10:00 and 14:00. There is no appointment, no fee and no form to fill in beforehand.
The free Friday clinic
Every Friday, 10:00–14:00
- When
- Every Friday, 10:00–14:00 Next: 30 Oct
- Where
- Baishmouja Bazar, Meghna River Bank, Nabinagar, Brahmanbaria
- Who you will see
- Two specialist doctors, a health assistant and local volunteers run every clinic day.
- What to bring
- what patients should bring to the clinic, for example previous prescriptions or test reports
What to expect
A clinic morning follows the same order every week, which is what allows two doctors to see up to eighty people between ten and two.
1. Arrive and register
A volunteer takes your name, age, village and the reason for your visit at the desk by the door. Registration opens at 10:00. People are seen in the order they arrive, except that very small children, pregnant women and the frail are moved forward.
2. Basic checks
The health assistant records blood pressure, and weight or temperature where it matters. These readings go on your card so that changes can be seen from one visit to the next.
3. Consultation
You see a doctor privately. The consultation is unhurried enough for the doctor to ask about diet, work and the household, because most of what comes through the door has a cause outside the body.
4. Medicine or referral
Prescribed medicines that we hold are dispensed free at the counter. If your case needs a hospital or a specialist, the doctor tells you where to go and what to say when you get there.
Who the clinic is for
Anyone who cannot easily pay for medical care. In practice that means the people who arrive first: mothers with small children, elderly people who walk in with a stick, women whose own health has waited behind everyone else's, and day laborers who lose a day's pay by coming at all.
We do not ask what you earn, what your community is, or how you vote. We do not require you to be from Krishnanagar or Birgaon Union, and people travel in from further out along the river. Nobody has ever been turned away for being from the wrong village.
A typical clinic day
| Date | Patients | Children | Women | Men | Most common complaints | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 44 | Most | Most | Few | Recorded as mostly women and children | ||||
| May 2025 | 54 | 24 | 24 | 6 | Itching | loose stools | fever | weakness | joint pain |
| 1 May 2026 | 79 | 28 | 43 | 8 | Lower back pain | cough | itching |
Where and when
Getting there
The clinic is at the Abul Khair Health Care office at Baishmouja Bazar, on the Meghna river bank in Birgaon, Nabinagar, Brahmanbaria 3410. The office is on the bazar itself and the sign carries the organization's name in Bengali and English.
directions to Baishmouja Bazar from Nabinagar town and from Brahmanbaria town, including bus or CNG routes and journey times
If you are unsure whether the clinic is running on a particular Friday, call +88 01768 003 747 or check our Facebook page.
What to bring
what patients should bring to the clinic, for example previous prescriptions, test reports, or a national ID
Bring any medicine you are already taking, in its packet if you still have it. It saves the doctor time and prevents a duplicate prescription.
Why Friday
Friday is the weekly holiday. It is the one day when a day laborer does not lose a day's pay by coming, when a child is not in school, and when the doctors who travel out to us can give a full day. Holding the clinic on any other day would halve the queue and change who was in it.
It also means the clinic is predictable. People who have been coming for seven years do not need to check anything: they know that if they walk to Baishmouja Bazar on a Friday morning, a doctor will be there. That predictability is worth more here than any amount of publicity.
Privacy and dignity
Consultations happen out of earshot. Patient names, conditions and household circumstances stay in the register and are never discussed outside the clinic, including with donors. Nobody is photographed during a consultation, and nobody is asked to pose with what they have been given.
Women make up the largest share of the queue, and a great deal of the clinic's design is about making it a place they will come back to: female staff on the registration desk and at the dispensing table, women doctors on the rota, and a queue managed so that nobody has to argue for their place.
The Abul Khair Health Care office at Baishmouja Bazar, Meghna River Bank, Birgaon, Nabinagar, Brahmanbaria.
If the clinic cannot help you
You will be told so, on the day, along with where to go instead. A referral from the clinic is not a brush-off: the doctor writes down what the problem appears to be and what to ask for, which makes a great deal of difference at a district hospital counter. If cost is the barrier to following a referral, say so, because emergency medical aid is one of the things our relief program exists for.
The doctors and clinic team
Two specialist doctors are on duty each week, supported by a health assistant, the clinic in-charge and volunteers. Visiting doctors who join a camp are named in the report we publish afterwards.
Dr Abu Bakar Bin Sayeed
Medical Consultant
Medical consultant to Abul Khair Health Care, consulting and prescribing at the Baishmouja clinic. qualifications and specialty, and confirm the spelling Sayeed or Saeed
Dr Tanzema Morshed
Medical Consultant
Medical consultant to Abul Khair Health Care, with a particular role in the care of women and children at the clinic. qualifications and specialty
Fatema Akter
Clinic In-Charge
Runs the Baishmouja clinic on the day: registration, the patient register, the dispensing table and the flow of the queue. Present every Friday.
Munni Akter
Health Assistant
Health assistant at the Friday clinic, taking blood pressure and basic measurements and preparing patients for consultation. photograph and consent to publish it
Clinic day, September 2024
Clinic reports
HealthcareFree Medical Camp Completed: 79 Patients Treated on 1 May 2026
Seventy-nine patients were seen free of charge at the camp of 1 May 2026, and the organization reported passing 70,000 people treated in seven years.
HealthcareFree medical service in Nabinagar: 54 patients treated
Fifty-four patients were treated at the Friday clinic: 24 children, 24 women and 6 men, each given a free consultation, diagnosis and essential medication.
HealthcareFree clinic day at Baishmouja AKWO Clinic, every Friday
Forty-four patients were seen at the Baishmouja clinic this week, mostly women and children. The clinic has run every Friday for six years and it costs nothing to attend.
Keep the doors open on Friday
Medicine, dressings and the doctors' travel are the whole cost of a clinic day.
Registered with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Government of Bangladesh · Reg No. Brahman 615/24
