Patients don’t have trust in country’s health system

Health Minister Zahid Malek himself admitted that Bangladesh’s healthcare system is not on the right track when he recently said that a great number of people go abroad for treatment.

For him, these patients go abroad due to the fact that they do not have confidence in the local health system in the case of serious diseases.

The Health Minister recently informed that every month two to two-and-a-half million people seek treatment in government hospitals in the country. This number is around 30 to 35 crore annually.

There is a point here. The people who take health services from the government hospitals are mostly poor people who cannot afford treatment at costly private hospitals or go to foreign countries.

For the middle class of people, their choice is India; but the richer people usually go to Singapore or Thailand.

The so-called VIPs in the government go to these two countries. Sometimes they also go to Western countries, usually the UK, spending a lot of taxpayer’s money.

They should feel shame for this. If these VIPs can get better health service from foreign countries so easily, Bangladesh’s healthcare system cannot rise to the international standard.

The relatively poor people and among the people who are not VIPs can never hope to get better health service from the country’s hospitals.

The Health Minister said that all people had to receive treatment from the country’s health care system during the Coronavirus pandemic.

But at that time also there was discrimination, as the government arranged separate treatment facilities for the public servants, the VIPs.

Could these ‘important’ people take treatment from the squalid condition of public hospitals?

However, patients from Bangladesh who go abroad clearly have a basis for doing that.

In case of many critical diseases like cancer, kidney, heart and brain ailments, the country still lacks in developed medical care.

If modern treatment facilities for these diseases are not created, medical tourism from Bangladesh cannot be stopped.

Also, an environment of trust must be created in the country’s healthcare system be it public or private. If the VIPs go to foreign countries as a matter of routine instead of taking healthcare from the country, neither will the country’s treatment standard improve, nor will an atmosphere of trust be created.