Thakurgaon, May 14 -- In the villages of northern district Thakurgaon, community clinics once stood as a lifeline for thousands of low-income families - places where a fever, a stomach infection or a child's cough could be treated free of cost, just a short walk from home.

However, today, many of those same clinics tell a different story.

Rows of medicine shelves sit nearly empty across all 28 community clinics in Pirganj, leaving hundreds of patients returning home without treatment and exposing the fragile reality of rural healthcare for some of the country's most vulnerable people.

Except for limited supplies of iron and antacid tablets reserved mainly for pregnant women, most essential medicines - from fever reducers and painkiller...