Health Minister Mohammed Nasim has come down hard on private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres for making ultra-profit by holding patients hostage.
Citing examples, the minister said sometimes private medical centres make 400 times profit for doing a simple laboratory test. He said centres often charged as much as Tk200 for simple blood test that cost a laboratory only about Tk2.
Nasim said it was not that the healthcare centres installed new machines every day. There was no point in making so much profit since they used the same machines, installed years ago, for doing the tests.
“I am not the health minister of the rich. I am the health minister of the poor,” he said, warning the private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers that he would not tolerate such profit-driven business activities.
“You will be allowed to do rational profit. I will take all necessary steps to ensure the quality of service at affordable prices,” he affirmed.
The minister made the remarks while speaking as the chief guest at a seminar in a city hotel yesterday.
He asked the divisional directors and civil surgeons to strengthen monitoring and supervision at the grassroots-level healthcare facilities to ensure the presence of enough doctors.
“If other government officials can stay at the upazilas, why not the doctors?” the minister inquired, adding that “all kinds of facilities including electricity, internet, mobile phones, schools and colleges are now available in the upazilas.”
There would be both rewards and punishments for doctors based on their performance, Nasim said.
In Bangladesh, private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers are run according to a 1982 ordinance. Professionals said there were very few private hospitals at that time.
But at present, there are more than 8,000 registered private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers in the country. It is also said that the number of unregistered private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centers will surpass the number of registered ones.
Since 1996, many initiatives have been taken to formulate a law for governing the operations of private healthcare facilities. A draft of the law was placed in parliament during the tenure of the BNP-Jamaat-led government which eventually never saw light.
The subsequent army-backed interim and the Awami League-led governments also made several drafts of the law.
Seeking anonymity, a number of officials of the health ministry and the health directorate told the Dhaka Tribune that many ministers, MPs and political leaders were directly involved with the business of private hospitals. As a result, they always block the way of passage of such laws.