Editorial
Rural healthcare in neglect
PM's reprimand was needed
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as asked the government doctors who are diffident in taking up rural postings to quit their job. We hope the PM would not leave it to words but implement her warning.
The acute shortage of doctors, nurses and technicians in rural hospitals has forced many patients to resort to traditional healers or, for those able to afford it, to seek medical care in the capital, overburdening the city's already crowded hospitals. For people living in chars and other places with poor communication, the ordeal is even greater when there are no local doctors, as poor transport links prevent patients from being able to access medical care in time.
Not only are thousands of positions vacant in rural hospitals, but those which are not, in reality remain so, with only a handful of doctors attending to hundreds of patients a day. According to a World Bank report published in 2009, 40 percent of doctors at rural healthcare centres are regularly absent. Reasons for their absenteeism include the poor pay and standard of living in villages, as opposed to that earned from their private practices in the capital city. The insufficient supply of medicine, obsolete equipment and inadequate facilities in rural hospitals are also barriers to proper medical treatment within an infrastructure which was originally one of the best in the region.
The below-standard or simply unavailable healthcare in villages has forced many patients -- 80 percent of the population, according to a report by a civil society network which monitors the healthcare situation in the country -- to turn to non-state health care providers. In this context, a practical step may be the training and monitoring of village doctors. The greatest necessity, however, is that for a self-propelled, constantly supervised system of rural healthcare with a strong monitoring mechanism which will hold accountable doctors and staff for the number of patients examined and treated, cured and referred and the nature of treatment administered at these hospitals. It is unfortunate but necessary that the traditional Hippocratic Oath taken by all doctors swearing to uphold ethical standards in their medical practice, must be enforced through administrative and, if required, legal means.
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