Even the rhetoric, 'zero tolerance to corruption' has disappeared from political lexicon for a long time. It is not because corruption itself has taken its leave from administration and society. Far from it, if has been rife. Reports prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of Bangladesh, the prime financial oversight institution, on different government offices have exposed how obscenely rife financial irregularities are in those. Here the focus is on the health sector, more particularly on the procurement of medical equipment by the Central Medical Store Depot (CMSD) for different government hospitals.
According to the CAG report, the CMSD misspent Tk 4.59 billion in the five financial years between 2015 and 2019. The way it did so only gives the impression that it has developed a nexus of swindlers of public money in cahoots with the administration of some government medical colleges and where such collusion was not possible simply dumped equipment uninvited. This perhaps explains why machines and equipment sent to medical colleges remain undisturbed and uninstalled for years together or if unpacked and installed, cannot be put into operation.
If this is not enough, the outrageously inflated prices of medical gadgets not only confirm the level of corruption resorted to but also gives a glimpse of how others are made malleable parties to the malpractice which consequently becomes infectious. The CAG report finds that medical and surgical supplies from the CMSD were 18 times pricier in the financial year 2016-17 than those on offer at the time from the Public Health Institute and the Essential Drug Company, both government entities. Clearly, the medical colleges which received the supplies and the supplier are both willing partners of this large-scale corrupt practice.
In a country where allocation for the health sector is one of the lowest in the region and the poor people cannot afford healthcare costs in the absence of diagnostic machines and equipment in upazila health complexes and intensive care units (ICU) even in most district hospitals, swindling of public money in this way is indeed a crime against the people. These elements are enemies of the people and they must be meted out the punishment they deserve under the law of the land.
The allocation may be low but what is the point of forcing on hospitals medical equipment that cannot be used because either those are unwanted or there are no trained technicians or operators to operate those. Had the allocated fund been properly used, public hospitals could be armed with better and more medical facilities. There is a complaint that physicians are reluctant to stay at their duty stations in upazilas and districts. When they are transferred from the capital's hospitals, they find upazila health complexes and even district health facilities awfully poorly equipped. They cannot apply their knowledge and skills there, so they try to leave the place as soon as they can. This again serves as a breeding ground for grafts as such transfers are facilitated by underhand dealings of a fat amount of money in each case.
Here is just a five years' corruption picture. It has been going on for decades and it is not the only area of misuse of public money in the health sector. Public hospitals apart, private ones with or without qualified doctors, minimum medical gadgets and healthcare environment can run rather more commercially than professionally because of oversight institutions' indifference or involvement in malpractices. Thus in most cases medical care leaves much to be desired and at times awful blunders end up causing tragedies like the one that happened recently at the Central Hospital. So, there always remains a gap in confidence between the public and healthcare facilities here. No wonder, people who can afford seeks medical care abroad.
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