Increasing dialysis fee not just when food inflation is so high

It is very worrying that the fee of haemodialysis, which is a lifeline for patients with kidney failure, has been increased in public hospitals. The private hospitals where charges for any treatment procedures are extremely high have also increased the fee of the dialysis programme. This rise in fee is really shocking, especially in public hospitals, when poor kidney patients are dying in large numbers because they are unable to bear the cost of the treatment.
Not surprisingly, after the health authorities declared an increase in fee, patients as well as their relatives and friends demonstrated their anger and displeasure. According to a report in this newspaper on Wednesday, people gathered in front of Chattogram Medical College Hospital demanding review of the decision.
The fee for an eight-time dialysis programme in a month has almost doubled the dialysis fee per patient. Where earlier Tk 8,650 was necessary per month for a patient, under the new rule, a patient now needs Tk 13,880 to have an eight-time dialysis programme.
When the present extreme food inflation has sent even the middle class families to their breaking point, this extra burden for families that have a kidney dialysis patient is not just. In Bangladesh, kidney patients with no financial abilities are driven to choose death, and now many patients in the middle class will have to choose this inevitable.
The report says that public hospitals where third parties are involved in kidney dialysis procedures–in fact in most treatment procedures including diagnosis they are involved–have increased the fee.
Here is a point. Due to lack of monitoring and accountability, a large number of staff is using public hospitals as their personal business venture. The gullible poor people are easily falling into their trap.
Besides this rise in dialysis fee, there is, however, the old problem. In most districts, kidney dialysis facilities are not available in government hospitals or health centres. This absence of dialysis treatment and rise in fee can pertinently give an insight into how the public hospitals are faring as regards to providing health service to people. It is very substandard to say the least.
While it is urgently necessary to improve the service of government health facilities, the authorities are well advised to reduce the dialysis giving subsidies here as experts have pointed out.