MIZAN RAHMAN

Big void in national healthcare
FOR a long time we have been fed on an impression that structurally our district, upazila and rural health complexes have been among the best in the region and we never tired of showcasing it to visiting dignitaries. It's time however we stop resting on the laurel unless we have made them into thriving, vibrant health complexes with all the OPD and in-patient facilities constantly under the watch of qualified doctors and nurses.
This may sound like a wish-list at the moment; for, many of these complexes going through wear and tear over time now look virtually abandoned and deserted where empty beds and barest of furniture make a mockery of absentee 'medicare'.
So Dhaka-centred has been the choice of doctors' postings that they visit rural health centres to which they were posted for a mandatory period just to collect their monthly salary, so goes the story. How are then the district, upazila and rural health complexes to operate without their minimum complement of physicians, nurses, let alone consultants? Equipment are left to rust for lack of technicians and operators and the dispensaries exist only in name. There are, may be, exceptions but only a handful.
In this overall context, it is inexplicable that despite the government's repeated pledges some 25,000 sanctioned posts in public sector health complexes largely remain vacant. We are surprised to note that doctors, nurses, health assistants and community health service providers should be in short supply given the turn-out rates of our medical and paramedical institutions.
Of course, of the total sanctioned strength, the government has been able to recruit 3,551 doctors, and 6,100 health assistants in one and a half years of its tenure. At that rate, it would need more than its full term to complete the process of recruitment. How do the hospitals run under such a heavy strain of manpower shortage? They should expedite.
Little wonder, private clinics of indifferent quality are mushrooming even in the district and semi-urban areas. They do fill a void, but need to be standardised badly.
It is the primary responsibility of the government to reach medicare to the entire population at affordable prices if we are to meet the MDG goal for health for all. With our success on child immunisation programmes, a void remaining in terms of adult healthcare can only be an impediment to the much-needed consolidation of the gains from other improved social indicators like child immunisation and school enrolment.