Hospitals can offer hardly one bed per 1,000 people

The hospitals can offer hardly one bed per 1,000 people, according to an official survey, exposing the sorry state of the country's health services.
The ratio is much lower than that of the world's standard.
The private and government hospitals have only 0.96 beds per 1,000 population, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said in its "Private Health Service Institution Survey 2019" revealed on Monday.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends at least 3.5 beds per 1,000 of population as a global standard.
The shortage of beds as compared to the population has exposed the weaknesses of the country's health services system especially during the ongoing Covid pandemic.

The BBS conducted the health service institution survey 2019 during the fiscal year (FY) 2018-19, based on preliminary data from the Health Services Department and then updated those data accordingly.
The BBS unfolded its preliminary survey findings at a dissemination meeting in its office on Monday, with its Director General Md Tajul Islam in the chair. BBS secretary Mohammd Yamin Choudhury and other officials were present.
According to the survey, Bangladesh has a total of 16,979 health service providing hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres. Some 105,183 beds were available there.
Of the total beds, only 0.32 are available per 1,000 of population in the government hospitals. In the private hospital, the numbers of bed were 0.64 per 1,000 of population on an average, the BBS findings showed.
Out of those 16,979 private health service providing entities across the country, 60.61 per cent were diagnostic centres, 26.22 per cent hospitals, 8.23 per cent clinics and 4.99 per cent dental clinics.
The BBS said the private hospitals and clinics had created 26,815 fresh jobs for the professionals within a year in FY2018.
Among the new jobs, the hospitals had absorbed highest 77.33 per cent employees, followed by diagnostic centres 19.85 per cent, clinics 3.70 per cent and dental clinics 0.12 per cent.
Until FY2018, this sub-sector had created 368,580 jobs, of which 85.72 per cent full-time and the rest 14.28 per cent part-time employment. A year ago in FY2017, the total number of employment in the private health sector was 289,126.
Meanwhile, the gross output of the private sector health services institutions in FY2018 was Tk 267.371 billion maintaining a 15.91 per cent growth compared to Tk 230.67 billion outputs a year ago.
The institutions contributed a value worth Tk 192.28 billion to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) in FY2018 from that of Tk 163.49 billion in FY2017.
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