Quality of treatment not good in public hospitals: Minister

The junior health minister is “not happy” with the quality of service in Bangladesh’s public hospitals.

Zahid Maleque on Wednesday said the quality must be improved with an increase in the number of hospitals.

He was speaking at the release of the Bangladesh National Health Accounts that showed the government spending on the health sector along with those of the private sector and NGOs.

He said the government was building new health facilities to take the services to the grassroots.

“But I am not happy with the quality of treatment,” he said. “It has to improve”.

The national health accounts that the Health Economics Unit of the health ministry released revealed that the total health spending was more than Tk 325 billion in 2012, which was more than the spending in 2007.

But the government’s share was only 23 percent.

Maleque, however, said that despite such low spending, the health sector saw “an impressive” growth in the past decade.

People’s own spending accounted for more than 63 percent of the total health expenditure.

The figure remained static even in the latest survey findings released on Wednesday.

Experts, however, warned that such low government spending would stand in the way of achieving universal health care, which prevents people from slipping into poverty because of burdensome treatment expenses.

Director General of the Health Economics Unit Md Ashadul Islam presented the new data of the national health accounts.