Peaceful death: Isn’t that very costly?

Dr. Syed Nesar Ahmad Rumy :
Death is a universal truth and everyone has to have the experience of death. We all know this destiny. Everyday many people die for different causes. There are natural death, unnatural death, accidental death and death by different diseases. But we all want full-life experience in this world. In real life we can only think about the eternal world but no one can describe the eternal world in this world. We get the description of the eternal world from the holy books. In this world we all want full-life experience with achievements to the highest level. This might not be possible to all but this may be the wish of majority of us.
In this world the human being is trying intermittently to upgrade their situation and economic condition. Sometimes some people get close to their desired goal but majority of us leave this world without exploiting their full potentials and competences. We all do not want to die in this beautiful world but we all have to die one day. Maybe the time of death is very close to many of us or some of us might get full-life experience in this world with lots of achievements. We do not know when we will die and how long we will be alive. But in this world a peaceful death after full-life achievements is desirable to all of us. Recently Queen Elizabeth died and the Buckingham palace declared that Queen died peacefully at the Balmorals palace in Scotland.
In the country like us peaceful death of common people is very costly here. People of our country lack proper medical support, care and appropriate treatment. They do not have sufficient money to get the best treatment available in the country. Rich people usually go abroad for better treatment. Every year a huge number of people go abroad for better treatment from our country. Here many people die every year without proper diagnosis and improper treatments. Those people suffer a lot during their time of treatments. In many cases they die with severe pains and mental shocks. But in this world everyone has the right to die peacefully. Now one can ask what peaceful death is. Hence peaceful death means a person die after getting full medical support available in the country where he/she lives. State has to ensure appropriate medical support to all the citizens. At present our country is not in that stage. But our aspiration should be so that all the citizens of the country must get appropriate treatment in their needs.
Now the present health service structure cannot fulfill the aspirations of the general people. The system is not working properly and it does not fulfill the aspiration of the patients and their relatives. We know we have very good health service structure and government medical centers/community clinics have been set up in the remote villages that we call Union medical Centre. But the problem is that the physicians and supporting medical staff are not always available there. We have Upazila health complex in every Upazilas and big general hospitals in all the districts with consultant doctors of different medical side. Moreover, currently new medical colleges are being set up in every district in Bangladesh. Even many private medical colleges are also set up in many districts in Bangladesh. In the capital city Dhaka and some other big cities and divisional headquarters some specialized hospitals, medical institutes are also established. Government has already taken decision to set up full-fledged medical universities in divisional headquarters and structural works have already started in those areas.
We have medical universities, medical colleges, specialized hospitals, big general hospitals in every district and moderate government hospitals in every Upazilas. Private medical colleges, big private hospitals are now familiar in big cities and district towns. There are innumerable clinics everywhere across the country. Even we see there hundreds of diagnostic centers and pathological centers everywhere but quality treatment and quality test report are not always ensured by these institutions. This is a big problem in our health sector. It is one of the causes of going abroad of rich people.
Even with all these institutions a big number of people in our country feel helpless when they come to the hospitals and diagnostic centers. It means that the system regarding health service does not work properly. The people who are rich can go abroad for better treatment but general people have not those chances to go abroad for better treatment. In Dhaka with some exceptions no hospitals are well-equipped and for pathological test concerned patient has to send sample to different pathologies or diagnostic centers. This shuttling is a big crisis for the patients and their relatives. For that reason one has to face severe problem for getting him/herself examined or to be tested. So hospitals equipped with full pathological support of all sides are very much needed.
The conditions of the public hospitals in our country are not patient friendly. Patients and their relatives always accuse doctors, nurses, ayas for not attending them with care. The outdoors of the hospitals are always in rush with full of patients. Moreover a huge number of brokers assigned by the private clinics are also wandering there. This is a general scenario. So better and appropriate treatment is very costly and it is out of reach from common people. After fifty years of our independence we could not implement patient friendly system in our health sector. We have hospitals, doctors, consultants but somehow the system does not work as expected by the common people. There are many countries in this world where state takes the responsibilities of treatment of common people. It is a matter of the right to get the proper treatment available in the country. But the cruel reality is that many people breathe their last getting no proper care and attention in the hospitals. Many of them spend their last days without medical care due to shortages of money. All these symptoms indicate that peaceful death has now become elusive in our country. Death is inevitable. We cannot stop it but the right to die in peace should be guaranteed to all. But circumstances and reality say peaceful death is very costly as the better and improved medical treatment is out of reach of our common people.

(The writer is former civil servant).