A day-long journalist workshop on "Investigative Health Reporting" with the members of the health reporters forum was held in the CIRDAP auditorium on 26 July,2024. Health reporters from different media houses came to learn about investigative health reporting. The workshop comprises of three sessions. The session 1 started at 10:30 am. 

Session 1 was on the topic of  drug pricing and anti-microbial Resistance. This session was facilitated by Dr Sayedur Rahman Khasru, Chairman, Department of Pharmacology, BSMMU. He first talked about what is antimicrobial resistance and why we are calling it a new epidemic.  His session was 45 minutes long. Journalists actively participated in the discussion.  

Dr Khasru later talked about drug pricing and illegal pharmacies operating in our country. The session was very informative since this issue was quite new for the journalists. Some of the journalist did reporting within two days on this particular issue. 

The second session was on absenteeism of health service providers by Dr Md Khalequzzaman, Associate Professor, Department of Public Health and Informatics, BSMMU. The facilitator talked about the reason behind absenteeism of doctors and health service providers. The whole session was moderated by Shishir Moral, veteran health journalist from Prothom Alo.

After the discussion the floor was open for question answer session. 

Session 3 was the last session where the moderator facilitated. Mr. Moral talked about what is investigative Health Journalism and how to write investigative health reports. He shared experiences how he does investigative reporting. What are the tactics of health reporting. 

Journalists shared their experience of investigative health reporting. How they did their investigation for the report writing and how they handle situations. 

At the end journalists discussed some of their own thought for pitching their story; such as illegal pharmacies in hospital areas, antibiotic use in rural area etc. The moderator assure them to guide them if they need any kind of support.

Around 27 health journalists attended the event. The journalists were from esteemed media houses, such as The Daily Star,  Samakal, Amader Somoy, Bangladesh Protidin, Bangladesh Television, Machranga, Channel 24, Ajker Potrika, The New Age, Kaler Kantho, Jaggo, Dainik Inqilub, Dainik Bhorer Dak, The Dhaka Post, BDNews 24,  The Business Standard etc.