Home ›› 30 Sep 2022 ›› Opinion

Worrying trend of climbing healthcare costs

Shoriful Kabir Shamim
30 Sep 2022 00:00:00 | Update: 29 Sep 2022 22:41:34
Worrying trend of climbing healthcare costs

Rising medical expenses have added a new dimension to the lives of people affected by various crises. After managing their daily expenses–keeping in view stifling inflationary pressures– the allocation for medical treatment is next to nothing. To make matters worse, the cost of healthcare has increased which is fast going beyond the reach of the masses. Fever, cold, dysentery, cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea and malaria have taken the place of non-communicable diseases.

Diabetes, respiratory disease, cancer, liver disease, kidney disease, heart disease, strokes and road accidents have now emerged as major health problems. The treatment of these diseases is long-term on the one hand and expensive on the other.

The cost of medicines and various types of tests for these diseases, hospital costs and doctor’s fees are now beyond the reach of people with limited income. Financially distressed people are finding it virtually impossible cope with medical costs. Climbing healthcare costs are creating new health crises with no light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Rural health clinics, upazila hospitals, district hospitals and even most medical college hospitals do not have adequate facilities for diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. A type of nexus is taking advantage of this unwelcome situation.

The government has taken notice of the fact. This is evident from the closing down of various unauthorized clinics and hospitals by the Department of Health. These clinics and hospitals often made headlines in newspapers for surgeries performed by non-physicians.

In addition to the scarcity of medicines, there are also the alleged nexus involving unscrupulous physicians and diagnostic centres which forces patients to undergo numerous tests deemed unnecessary by experts.

Necessary and unnecessary tests increase the medical costs exponentially. Patients and their families bear the cost of commission trading. In addition to doctors’ chambers, there are broker networks in rural and urban areas. They collect patients from different places and bring them to different medical facilities. For this, they take commission and patients have to bear this cost indirectly.

Thus, in most cases, the financial and morale fabric of the patients has been torn asunder. Those who are rich go abroad for getting treatment. It is difficult for the commoners to think of going outside the country for medical treatment. They lose everything in seeking treatment, become destitute; especially cancer, heart disease, kidney disease and liver patients. There are many people who were prosperous even a few days ago and they had a happy life with neighbours and relatives, now they only have the house, having to forego other assets. All the rest had to be sold to treat cancer, heart disease, and kidney ailment. These patients push themselves as well as the entire family into the face of disastrous poverty.

Patients with the above mentioned diseases require specialized treatment. The scope and availability of these specialized treatments needs to be ensured. For this, a national database of how many cancer patients, how many stroke patients are paralyzed in the country is essential. Similarly, a database of kidney patients is needed so that the treatment plan can be made based on this.

A study of Bangladesh Renal Association makes a startling revelation; as many as 1.7 million people die annually in the country because of various types of kidney diseases. More than 50 per cent of the people are out of treatment facilities because of the high cost of kidney disease treatment.

The health sector was yet again neglected in the current national budget, with around Tk 36,864 crore -- 5.43 per cent of the total budget – allocated for the sector in FY 2022-2023.

In the past decade, the allocation for the health sector consistently remained below six per cent of the total budget. According to experts, it should be at least 15 per cent to ensure that quality service is accessible for all. If not 15 per cent as stated by the experts, the budgetary allocation for healthcare should be at least being doubled at the earliest possible time.

Against a population of well over 160 million, Bangladesh has maintained approximately 90,000 life insurance policies and of those less than 10 per cent of life insurance subscribers have health coverage.

It is unfortunate that in Bangladesh, people are rarely willing to pay for insurance against any risk, health, and/or accident. These insurance companies have historically been associated with international travel, only because many nations do not allow entry without such a policy.

While the state has subsidized public sector healthcare, a policy push for health insurance is simply not there, and the concept of insurance support only began gaining some traction in the late 1990s, according to statements by several insurance experts.

A compact insurance policy however should play a significant role in the health sector.

The authorities must clamp down on unethical practice of physicians and unethical trade practice in hospitals and diagnostic centres. Doctor should only prescribe relevant tests. The Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Welfare can jointly take steps to provide necessary medicines and other medical assistance. It is needed to ensure that patients registered in the national database can access medical care at a fair and low cost.

On the other hand, such specialized medical services require planning to build the necessary infrastructure and manpower. There is a need to coordinate the activities of the government and various voluntary organisations.

Keeping the price of medicines affordable, necessary measures should be taken to stop unnecessary diagnostic tests. Control of huge medical bills in various hospitals and clinics, control of broker system, necessary decentralization of specialized treatment is the need of the hour.

In this case, a specific policy should be taken to organize the activities of the relevant ministries and private medical facilities. Otherwise, the treatment will become a wild goose chase for the general public.

The writer is a journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected]

×