Covid and escalating family health budget

With businesses and jobs getting more and more illusory during the pandemic, especially with the onset of the second wave of Covid-19, people in general are finding it extremely difficult to meet the costs of quality healthcare services in the country.

The family budget has already shot through the roof for many families and they dread the very thought of getting hospitalised in case of complications. The stories of the cost of hospital bed, oxygen cylinder, ICU, various tests and medicines that are going around are out-and-out scary for any person with limited income. Therefore, the maxim “Cut your coat according to your cloth” is not applicable to Bangladesh at the moment.   

Since regular income sources are dwindling, and even disappearing in some cases, most families are now dependent on whatever money they had saved in the last ten years for other purposes like children’s education, wedding or construction of a house. In fact, budgets for food, clothes and entertainment have been drastically reduced to keep aside more money for any health emergency. Many families have given up consuming expensive fish, meat, beverages and afternoon refreshment items in a bid to save money. Instead, they are stockpiling medicines at home along with small devices to check oxygen saturation, blood pressure, fever etc., which is draining out money even if the family doctor suggests the contrary. To add to the shopping list are various types of supplementary food and drinks that manufacturers claim to help increase one’s immunity.       

What does healthcare cost during the pandemic look like on a research document?  According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) healthcare and medical expenses have gone up by 7.73 per cent as of June 2021, which was 6.86 per cent in 2020, and 2.88 per cent in 2019. Experts are of the opinion that medical and healthcare cost escalation happened because of the rise in the price of medicine, hospital bed rents and diagnostic fees.

It is only natural that people will remain on the borderline of panic during a pandemic like the one we are experiencing for the last eighteen months or so. When diagnosis and treatment appear to be complicated and death becomes a routine affair, one will lose normal senses and sometimes act injudiciously.

 In order to address such a mass reaction to a crisis, the government should take certain measures like imposing price control of medicine in the light of the National Drug Policy, reducing taxes on the import of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), bringing all private hospitals under accreditation, fixing bed rent and test price etc.

As of now, Bangladesh’s allocation for the health sector is one per cent, while out-of-pocket health expenditures are 74 per cent of total health expenditure, the highest in the South Asian region.

The health officials will have to do more to live up to their reputation as healthcare service providers. The general people are still in the dark regarding many of the components of service they expect from the providers. Different hospitals charge differently for same services and tests. Should an oxygen cylinder cost Tk. 60,000 or Tk. 15,000? How much should hospitals charge for CT scan? How much for ICU? What are the standardised rates for common tests?

At such difficult times, people need the government health officials on their side to offer them quality services that they can afford. Cure must not come at the cost of a life.