Healthcare system needs a thorough shakeup

That the country's healthcare system is plagued by a lot of discrepancies and inadequacies does not require any elaboration. Volumes have been said and written on this particular issue over the years but to no avail.  Speakers at a debate programme organised in the city late last week came up with a wide range of suggestions and recommendations including establishment of a regulatory body for streamlining the healthcare sector. The debate programme coincided with the government initiative to reform the sector. It may be mentioned that the interim government last November formed a Health Affairs Reform Commission to recommend reforms with the objective of making health services more accessible and universal. The core recommendation of the programme was the establishment of a regulatory body to standardise pricing, enforce quality accreditation and form a grievance mechanism for the patients.

Though there are several health-related agencies under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, those have hardly any control over cost of treatment, especially in private hospitals and clinics. These private healthcare outlets fix treatment charges whimsically. They do not bother to take into consideration the paying capacity of the poor and low-income people. In view of this, the speakers at the debate programme underscored the need for enacting a comprehensive health law and creating a central regulatory authority to oversee private sector engagement in health services. Patients usually do not have the scope to know beforehand how much they will have to spend for a specific treatment. For lack of effective control, pharmaceutical companies arbitrarily fix prices of medicines and increase them quite frequently. These are some of the reasons why expense for treatment is so high in Bangladesh. It is because the treatment cost remains much beyond commoners' affordability. The speakers at the programme raised concern over the high financial burden on the patients. The proposed regulatory body may devise mechanism for price control by distinguishing between actual medical cost and that charged by many healthcare outlets out of unethical commercial motive.

Healthcare services in Bangladesh are much below international standard. People do not have that much faith in the country's healthcare system. This loss of confidence prompts thousands of patients to opt for treatment outside the country at the expense of hard-earned foreign currencies from the state exchequer. Enforcement of quality accreditation is also vitally important for ensuring service quality of hospitals, laboratories and doctors. Establishment of a grievance mechanism for patients until now was an alien idea in the country. Very often patients are subjected to various forms of harassment but the victims have nowhere to go to lodge complaints for redress. The proposed grievance mechanism is expected to be a relief for the health service seekers. Similarly, public-private partnership in healthcare service is a unique idea in Bangladesh. So, serious efforts should be made to translate that idea into reality.

The Health Affairs Reform Commission has its own recommendations for streamlining the country's healthcare system. The authorities concerned are also expected to incorporate experts' suggestions if those are not already covered by the Reform Commission. Such an integration of suggestions and recommendations will hopefully free the archaic medical service system and make it accessible to common people.