Editorial
Healthcare spending
Public health must be given priority
The World Health Organization's recently published World Health Statistics 2012 has found that Bangladesh spends less than the minimum amount of 44 USD or Tk 3,608 per person per year on healthcare. Among the SAARC countries, this puts Bangladesh with its 21 USD per person in a position only better than Pakistan, and in a much worse position than even war-torn Afghanistan.
The situation is not quite dire -- yet. While in terms of percentage of the total budget, allocation to the health sector has gone down from 5.4 percent in the fiscal year 2011-2012 to 4.9 percent in 2012-2013, due to the size of the increased budget, the actual Tk 93.55 billion is Tk 0.10 billion more than the last financial year. The government has recently recruited more people into the health sector and established community clinics across the country.
The spending pattern needs to be reprioritised to a certain extent. Money spent on disease prevention and awareness raising on health issues will have to be increased also the family planning and reproductive health deserve a greater funnelling of resources.
It is worthwhile to note that people are having to spend more from their own pockets for healthcare -- 64 percent, according to 2007 statistics.
The worst affected are, obviously, the poor, who not only lack access to private medical services, but who end up having to pay more from their own pockets for what is often sub-standard public medical care. It is not enough to allocate greater funds to the health sector; their balanced distribution and effective utilisation according to public need must be ensured to benefit the people, who have been promised health care as a basic right.
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