AN increasing number of Bangladeshi patients flock to neighbouring countries, including India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia for ‘better treatment’ draining out foreign exchange, as per reports of a local daily.
Thousands of patients, including politicians, go abroad every year for even ordinary medical treatment while doctors have claimed that Bangladesh has almost all the medical facilities, health rights activists said. Patients going abroad, however, said that they lacked confidence in the healthcare providers here.
Health rights activists also blamed behavioural problems and quick profit making mentality of the health service providers for the situation. Post-treatment care is really poor in our hospitals, be that public or private.
Health economists said that the outbound medical tourism was draining out huge foreign currencies but there was no policy or mechanism for overcoming the situation. There is no national data on patients going abroad for treatment. According to Export of Health Services Survey conducted by Directorate-General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics of India, Bangladesh was the largest foreign user of India’s health services exports in 2015-16.
Of the 460,000 inbound patients to Indian hospitals, more than 165,000 were from Bangladesh accounting for the highest export earnings of about $0.34 billion in 2015-16, said the survey.
It said that average earning per patient was $2,084 from Bangladeshi patients, the second highest next to $2,906 from Pakistani patients. Dhaka University Health Economics Professor Syed Abdul Hamid termed the outbound medical tourism as just importing services in exchange of foreign currencies.
There are about 100 offices or agencies of foreign hospitals only in Dhaka and each of them sends 10-15 patients every day to those countries, said Chief Executive Officer Ahmed Idrisi of International Business Centre for Medical Tourism, an agency that sends patients to hospitals in Delhi, Chennai and Bangkok.
One of the reasons for patients flocking abroad was inadequate health facilities in the country as only few hospitals or institutes could provide tertiary-level treatment. Another reason is that doctors in Bangladesh were less communicative and often blamed for commercial behaviour with the patients. However, the prevalence of the idea that doctors in general are not to be trusted must have a certain root in the reasoning. Many people have heard of cases of medical malpractices by doctors here, especially when major treatment is required, and so the impetus for going abroad gains further momentum.
There is no single way this will change. Until some of our doctors think of our patients as human beings and not cash cows, until they strive to continually improve themselves and take required levels of training, until they communicate easily and effectively, our countrymen will not trust them. Anyone who has even remotely the financial ability will take their patients outside the country. Its not that we have excellent doctors, but they are so few, and see so many patients, that their good work remains unrecognized.
