Dhaka, Jan. 4 -- For months, during my daily commute, a modest signboard reading BRAC Healthcare at Siddheswari kept catching my eye. I paid little attention at first, assuming it was just another pharmacy - one more addition to Dhaka's crowded streetscape of drugstores and clinics. Curiosity, however, has a way of interrupting assumptions. When I finally looked it up, I realised it was something rather different: a healthcare initiative under BRAC's social enterprise umbrella, offering consultations, diagnostics, dental care, physiotherapy, mental health services, nutrition counselling, and pharmacy facilities - all under one roof.

Like many residents of Dhaka, I had been postponing a visit to a medicine specialist. And like many others...