Status of public health care in rural areas
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
OVER the years, Bangladesh has built up layers of public health services across the country. There are public hospitals in the big cities and smaller versions of state-run hospitals in the rural areas called upazilla or thana health complexes. There are about 402 such established complexes in about 460 thanas or districts into which the country has been administratively divided.
The thana health complexes were built at huge costs over the years and government took loans from donor agencies like the World Bank for the purpose and regular massive allocations are made from the national budget for the maintenance and functioning of these government-run rural hospitals.
But any feedback on the state of these health complexes, after proper surveys, would surely reveal a very sad spectacle of corruption and neglect in varying degrees in all of them. Usually, the government doctors posted in the health complexes abstain from their hospital jobs and are found in many cases even engaging in private practice on the hospital premises neglecting the patients who come for free treatment.
The government-provided daily food budgets of patients are misappropriated substantially by the food contractors in connivance with hospital staff. Therefore, the diets served to patients are of poor quality. Free life-saving drugs are black-marketed and filth and lack of hygiene are noted in these hospitals.
Valuable machines are found rusting away with none to run them or, if operators are there, they take salaries without work because the machines remain chronically disabled. It would make a very long list if any attempt is made to name all the ills these hospitals are afflicted with. And that would not be feasible within the confines of this column either.
Only, it is stressed here that the relevant authorities in the government must take a hard look at the prevailing state of affairs in these rural hospitals with a view to deep cleansing the corruption in them and make their staff truly accountable. And this must be achieved very soon to make any sense out of the big allocations routinely made for public health care.
Md Shahidullah
Babar Road, Mohammadpur
Dhaka
The thana health complexes were built at huge costs over the years and government took loans from donor agencies like the World Bank for the purpose and regular massive allocations are made from the national budget for the maintenance and functioning of these government-run rural hospitals.
But any feedback on the state of these health complexes, after proper surveys, would surely reveal a very sad spectacle of corruption and neglect in varying degrees in all of them. Usually, the government doctors posted in the health complexes abstain from their hospital jobs and are found in many cases even engaging in private practice on the hospital premises neglecting the patients who come for free treatment.
The government-provided daily food budgets of patients are misappropriated substantially by the food contractors in connivance with hospital staff. Therefore, the diets served to patients are of poor quality. Free life-saving drugs are black-marketed and filth and lack of hygiene are noted in these hospitals.
Valuable machines are found rusting away with none to run them or, if operators are there, they take salaries without work because the machines remain chronically disabled. It would make a very long list if any attempt is made to name all the ills these hospitals are afflicted with. And that would not be feasible within the confines of this column either.
Only, it is stressed here that the relevant authorities in the government must take a hard look at the prevailing state of affairs in these rural hospitals with a view to deep cleansing the corruption in them and make their staff truly accountable. And this must be achieved very soon to make any sense out of the big allocations routinely made for public health care.
Md Shahidullah
Babar Road, Mohammadpur
Dhaka