85pc people seek quack remedies for low cost
The high costs have been preventing villagers to seek treatment from qualified doctors, specially from those physicians who hold degree of the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Science (MBBS), says a survey of a leading health research organisation.
The survey says perceived costs of treatment from qualified doctors and a person's ability to bear it usually influence health seeking behaviour of patients in rural areas.
The Behavioural and Social Sciences Division of International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) conducted the survey under four-year action research project with supports from Department for International Development of the United Kingdom.
The survey was conducted over 1,000 households in Chakaria, Cox's Bazar.
It finds only one out of seven rural people go to an MBBS doctor after illnesses. It says that the rural people would only prefer to consult an MBBS doctor during their serious illness.
The survey says over 85 percent people, who need treatment, do prefer to go quacks for low cost, a choice often blamed for poor quality service and wrong treatments that might even lead to drug resistance and other complications.
It says a combination of multiple factors that include higher fees, medicine prices, diagnostic tests and transportation costs to reach an MBBS have been deterring people to go less to such qualified doctors.
On the other hand, the village doctors who include semi-educated trained and untrained doctors, drug sellers and health assistants of qualified doctors do charge little or no money from patients as fees.
The village doctors, who are perceived as cheaper options, are easily accessible and they seldom suggests diagnostic tests, while provide medicine as per the desire and economic ability of the patients, the conditions that allure people to rush to village doctors than MBBS, the survey reveals.
The survey's one of key investigators Dr Mohammad Iqbal told the news agency that the main objectives of the study were to reduce harms caused by the quacks, specially allopathic village doctors, who occupy most of rural health systems in Bangladesh.
It shows that the respondents of the study spent highest amount of money for the healthcare from MBBS doctors. It says nearly 53 percent of the total amount spent by the study people to different health care providers was spent to MBBS doctors.
A few people prefer treatment from qualified doctors not only because of direct cost that include fees and diagnostic tests but also loss of workdays. Treatment from MBBS caused 1.5 times more loss of workdays than care from village doctors, paramedics, traditional and religious healers and others, it says.
The survey says the people who have visited MBBS had an average monthly direct expenditure of Tk 450, a benchmark that represents highest level of expenses for a poor person having an income of Tk 4,500 per month.
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