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PUBLIC health is a major area of concern and deserves the full-state attention for varied serious reasons. An individual, without sound health, cannot utilise his or her genetic potentials optimally for personal development nor can contribute significantly to national advancement. In the worst case, one invariably turns into a social liability. It falls within the welfare function of the state to ensure public health in the enlightened national interest. In fact, all efforts for human resource development produce far less than the desired results unless the health sector becomes reliably efficient and vibrant with activities geared to promotion of public health.
Unfortunately, the performance of the health sector in Bangladesh is not yet satisfactory and assuredly reliable. When cabinet ministers, senior leaders of opposition political parties and resourceful people go abroad for health checks or treatment at the expense of foreign currency and amounts bigger than usually required for similar services within the country, they clearly express no confidence in the national health-care system. That is by itself enough to assess whether or not there is yet scope for drawing satisfaction at the progress of the local health-care system. If the leaders cannot rely on it, why should they expect the people in the ordinary walks of life to repose their confidence in the local public health services?
The significant decline in infant mortality rate and relatively safe motherhood in the recent years are unquestionably positive developments. But much of the credit for these appreciable results in the preventive side of health-care should go to the UNICEF and other UN agencies devoted to promotion of public health in this country. They have ceaselessly worked in concert with the government in this sector and, at times, have taken greater initiatives than the local authorities in this regard. But the advancement in the curative side of the medical services, which is more cumbersome to claim and deserve greater and continued dedication of physicians and administrative attention than the preventive side, based on immunisation and vaccination requiring less human efforts, is not as impressive. The delicate test of leadership is broadly offered by this curative side, which the government in the ministry of health is yet to pass. The physical infrastructures are there in this country from the national level down to the union level for effective public health-care. But the problems of physicians not being always available at their places of posting and scarcity of proper medical equipment in facilities at the district level and below or equipment being not operational greatly impede the attainment of the official objectives. The approach should be -- whatever facilities are there should be functional.
The state-run medical college and other medical education-related hospitals are plagued by intense political groupings. The scope of virtually unrestricted private practice by senior physicians and professors has enhanced their clout to a level when they can decide their own terms of service. Physicians must be kept within their own turf to ensure better health-care services. Politicisation of appointments, transfer and posting and promotion of physicians must cease to enhance the reliability of health services. Many private hospitals have come up and their number is increasing. But no regulatory body is yet functional to oversee their quality of services, set the minimum performance standard and look into whether or not they are properly equipped and have sufficient qualified doctors. The same is true about the diagnostic centres, which have recorded mushroom growth across the country. Urgent steps are, therefore, essential to enhance their reliability and performance.
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