WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh on Monday said Bangladesh is exposed to its most crucial challenge in health sector in ensuring “quality” healthcare services despite its huge infrastructures in government sector.
“Seventy percent of the people pay from their pocket to receive the medical treatment (in Bangladesh) . . . which indicates the people are not satisfied with the healthcare services in the government sector,” she told BSS ahead of a four-day regional conference of World Health Organisation (WHO) from today.
Singh said those who framed the constitution after Bangladesh’s emergence in 1971 as the youngest nation in the region perhaps believed it would be good for the state to offer “free” medical treatment.
In line with the policy, she said, in subsequent decades huge healthcare infrastructures were built up but the quality of services remained to be a challenge.
The WHO’s regional chief identified access to healthcare and delivery of healthcare as two other challenging factors but added the government must mobilize its efforts more to ensure the “quality of healthcare” services in the state sector.
Singh, formerly an Indian civil servant to became a senior executive of WHO, however, appreciated the Bangladesh approach of reaching healthcare services at people’s doorsteps through “community clinics” at the grassroots saying it appeared to be a model for other regional countries.
“Of course it (community clinic system) should be replicated by others in the region,” she said, adding that she herself visited several of the facilities in remote areas and found it to be an effective system.
Singh also recalled that the community clinic system had witnessed a setback for a period in between 2001-2007 but appreciated it reemerged for the benefit of the common people at the grassroots.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to open the WHO regional conference to be joined by health ministers of 11 South-East Asian nations alongside the health experts and officials to discuss key health issues of the region and adopt “Dhaka Declaration”.
Singh said the issue of traditional medicine would be a major issue of the regional conference as being the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system WHO now thought it to be an “important part of healthcare” as most countries in the region have their own form of traditional medicine”
“Nine of the 11 countries (of WHO’s South-East Asian region) are practising traditional medicine,” she said, adding that this reality now prompted the UN health organization harness its potential contribution to health and universal health coverage under its new Tradition Medicine strategy for 2014-2024 period.
Singh said the traditional medicine like Ayurveda, Unani and other herbal treatment systems and homeopathy appeared cheaper, affordable and reliable to many people in the region while WHO regional office planned also to include the yoga as a practice as part of a “composite healthcare system”.
“Generally they do not have side effects (unlike allopathic medicines) and many people also think there are some chronic diseases which could be cured only by the traditional medicine,” she said.
Singh, however, acknowledged that the major focus of the modern healthcare still was on the allopathic system as sufficient researches were not carried out on the traditional medicine to ascertain their effectiveness and setting a standard which was now needed to be done.
“Most doctors will tell you about the lack of set standards for the traditional medicine . . . I also can’t differ much with them,” the top WHO regional chief said.
The other major focuses of the WHO regional conference are birth and death registration for accuracy of statistics to guide health policies, harmful use of alcohol, strengthening of emergency and essential surgical care in systems at the grassroots, vector-borne diseases like hepatitis, and regional strategy on strengthening health workforce.
