Corruption in Medical Sector in Bangladesh

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Title: Corruption in medical sector in Bangladesh

Prepared for:

Hossain, M. Shakhaowat (HSh)

ENG 105.08: Advanced Composition

Department of English

 Senior Lecturer, (Course Instructor)

North South University

Prepared by:

Date of Submission

20thAugust, 2017

Acknowledgement

First of all, I am grateful to all my class mates of this course. Their cooperation helped me do this research.

 I am really fortunate that I had a kind association as well as advice of Dr. Zakir Hossain, who is the Nephrologists of National Kidney institution. His valuable advice really helps me to get information about corruption in medical sector in Bangladesh.

I would like to thank all the respondents of my conducted survey on corruption in medical sector. Without their cooperation, it was not possible for me to conduct that survey. I would also like to thank all those articles, books, and report writers that I have used to conduct my secondary research.

Finally, I am thankful to my friend Mr. Md Mazharul Alam for his support to conduct this research.

Abstract

Table of content

Introduction

Corruption is defined as the means of realizing one’s interest illegally or abuse of public resource for personal benefit. Medical sector is one of the most important sectors for the safety of general people’s health and physical fitness. As Bangladesh is one of the most corrupted countries in the world, we have to face tremendous corruption problem in medical sector. People of all levels and classes have to suffer for this corruption problem. As a result, it hampers general people’s physical fitness, which directly affects our socio-economic condition.

Poor and lower middle class people suffer a lot for the corruption in medical sectors in Bangladesh. They don’t have the financial condition to spend too much money for their treatment. It also influences to rich and capable people to go abroad for better medical service. For this, it impacts on our economy directly.  

Every sphere of medical sector is highly corrupted in Bangladesh. There are some reasons of this corruption. The main reasons behind of this corruption are greediness, tendency to become rich quickly, desire of excessive profit, lack of ethical education etc. The level of accountability of doctors and hospital authorities are very insufficient to keep the medical sectors corruption in control.

Corruption in medical sector is a big threat for our future economy. This corruption spoils the level of service quality in medical sector. For this, general people have to deprive from good quality medical service. Lack of good medical service might be a reason of decreasing productivity level among general people, which can be a direct threat for our future economy.

To wipeout this problem from our society, we have to raise awareness and ethical education among the general people. Government can easily eliminate this problem by taking initiatives against corruption in medical sector for ensuring proper health service for general people.

Background

As one of the most corrupted countries in the world, medical sector of Bangladesh is facing huge corruption problem. The quality of medical service is very low in our country and people have to suffer a lot to get good quality medical service in this corrupted market.

A survey had been conducted by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) on the corruption of medical sector in Bangladesh. That report opened up our eyes and showed us the real scenario of the corrupted medical sector of Bangladesh. According to their report, Doctors, health officials and employees bribes up to 10 lakh BDT to health officials on appointment, transfers and promotion purposes. TIB presented their report in 2014 in a press conference at a hotel of Dhaka. The briefing was arranged to reveal the TIB report on the challenges to good governance in the health sector and ways to improve. The graft watchdog interviewed doctors, employees and officials between November 2013 and August 2014 to conduct the survey. Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of TIB who also attended the program, said the health sector of Bangladesh had several achievements but also had some limiting factors, like graft, which curbed the standard of healthcare in the country. The report said doctors pay 3 lakh to 5 lakh BDT in bribe for recruitment and 1 lakh to 2 lakh BDT for transfer to a Dhaka hospital from upazilas and upazilaSadars. To get transferred to an upazila town from remote areas or an upazila, they pay between 10,000 and 50,000 BDT. Health officials pay from 5 lakh to 10 lakh BDT in bribe for being transferred to Dhaka or adjoining areas, the report said. Grade-III and VI employees pay 1 lakh to 5 lakh BDT for appointment and 50,000 to 2 lakh BDT for transferring into upazila town from other parts in the upazilas, it said. Meanwhile, doctors, health officials and employees pay 2.5 lakh BDT or more to avoid transfer. For private healthcare services, the TIB said doctors have agreements with diagnostic centers and enjoy 30 to 50 percent commission for referring the patients to a particular diagnostic center. “The brokers in the middle get 10-30 percent commission.” Many diagnostic centers use names of pathologists to deliver a report despite having no staff pathologists of their own, the TIB said. (Daily Star 02:17 PM, November 06, 2014 / LAST MODIFIED: 01:53 AM, March 08, 2015http://www.thedailystar.net/healthcare-curbed-by-corruption-tib-49030 )