Poor healthcare

Avik Sengupta, 4 - 4840 Barclay Avenue, Montreal, Canada

Our medicare system is in dire need of patient-centered reform, not broad expansion. Working closely with McGill University Health Centre as a student of Health Science, I can attest that Bangladesh medicare is shabby. It views care primarily in terms of money and the number of people technically covered. Patients are often told which doctors they may see and which treatments are permissible. Medical decisions, perhaps our most personal, are often made by bureaucrats, rather than doctors and patients. Positive reform requires fundamental change that puts patients first. Incentives must be offered to contain costs, but our city based private clinics' health care system is incapable of providing patient - centered change. Instead, we should reform our national tax policy to ensure it makes financial sense for all Bangladeshis to be insured. The system needs to be overhauled so that insurance is owned and controlled by the patient, regardless of who is paying the bill. Only by using the power of patient's choice can we restore a system that is affordable, accessible, responsive, innovative and, most important, of the highest quality.