The study, titled “Mapping the urban health care landscape,” was conducted in Dhaka, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Narayanganj and Khulna.
It gets even worse as there are very few drug stores which have registered pharmacists, said Sohana Shafique, deputy project coordinator (health system and population) at the ICDDRB.
“In the majority of the drug stores, drug sellers supply medicines to customers without informing them about the possible side effects of those medicines,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.
“People living in the rural areas are in a much better situation when it comes to health care,” said AMM Nasir Uddin, senior fellow at Dhaka-based think tank Power and Participation Research. “The health care system in rural Bangladesh is very systematic and well-known. People know that when they get sick, they should first go to the community clinic, and when they need more specialised help, they should go to the union health complex.”
Then there are upazila-level and district-level health care facilities. “If all those institutions fail to alleviate their illness, they get referred to hospitals like Dhaka Medical College Hospital,” he added.
“But in urban areas, the impoverished population do not know that a public health care system exists there where they can get the medical attention they need.”
Nasir blamed the lack of government initiative to get the urban poor under public health care system.
“These facilities are mainly under the jurisdiction of city corporations and municipalities. Their priorities lie with other development projects, so health care and the development of medical facilities in accordance with the population’s needs gets little attention,” he said.
Because they do not have access to professional diagnosis, the urban poor often get wrong medications and sometimes succumb to diseases that could be easily treated.
“Especially in the cases of noncommunicable diseases like heart disease, their treatment – which requires hospital visits – often gets delayed and costs them much more money than necessary,” said Brig (retd) Abdul Malik, founder of National Heart Foundation.‘The existing health care system is enough’However, Malik believes that the urban poor can be served with the existing public health care services in the cities. “They only need to know that such facilities exist,” he said.
“It is mandatory on the government’s part to establish coordination among different elements of the public health care facilities in urban areas and ensure their maximum utilisation. The government should promote public facilities more and encourage people to go to public hospitals,” he added.
However, AKM Saiedur Rahman, line director (hospital) at the Directorate General of Health Services, thinks the government has done enough to ensure that public medical services are accessible to the poor.
“We have produced several advertisements to let people know about the health care services that the government offers. The information is available on the internet as well. If they still do not want to come to us, what can we do?” he told the Dhaka Tribune.Drug stores vastly unsupervisedAs of 2015, there are registered 119,217 drug stores – also commonly known as pharmacies – in the country, 11,834 of which are in Dhaka city alone, according to the Directorate General of Drug Adminsitration (DGDA).
There are around 30,000 more drug stores around the country which are running illegally, according to the DGDA.
Health care experts believe that the number could be well over 100,000.
In order to sell medicinal drugs, a proprietor needs to acquire a drug licence and establish a drug store, said DGDA Superintendent ATM Golam Kibria Khan.
“We conduct drives regularly to evict unlicensed drug stores,” he said.
Officials at the DGDA said the existing drug stores are more than enough to supply medicines to the entire country, which is why the medicinal drug authority stopped issuing drug licences in December last year.
Instead, the DGDA are working on establishing “model pharmacies” – drug stores that have at least 300 sq-ft of area and pharmacists who have proper knowledge of the medicines being supplied to customers.
“We do not need a hundred drug stores in a locality where 10 model pharmacies can do the job,” Kibria said. “If this concept is implemented properly, supervising them will become easier for us and people will have access to quality medicines.”
DGDA sources said 19 drug stores in Dhaka had already applied to be upgraded to model pharmacy status, Lazz Pharma and Tajreen Pharma among them.Among the fundamental necessities of life, health care remains illusive to the country’s urban poor. Privatised health care is beyond their economic reach, and they have little to no knowledge of where to go and avail themselves of the public health care service, according to experts.
This lack of awareness leads them to getting medication – without prescription – for their ailments from the drug stores, which can get away with doing so due to the lack of a monitoring system.
The situation is quite severe: drug stores are the first access point to health care for more than 70% of Bangladesh’s urban poor population, according to a 2014 study by the ICDDRB.
The study, titled “Mapping the urban health care landscape,” was conducted in Dhaka, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Narayanganj and Khulna.
It gets even worse as there are very few drug stores which have registered pharmacists, said Sohana Shafique, deputy project coordinator (health system and population) at the ICDDRB.
“In the majority of the drug stores, drug sellers supply medicines to customers without informing them about the possible side effects of those medicines,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.
“People living in the rural areas are in a much better situation when it comes to health care,” said AMM Nasir Uddin, senior fellow at Dhaka-based think tank Power and Participation Research. “The health care system in rural Bangladesh is very systematic and well-known. People know that when they get sick, they should first go to the community clinic, and when they need more specialised help, they should go to the union health complex.”
Then there are upazila-level and district-level health care facilities. “If all those institutions fail to alleviate their illness, they get referred to hospitals like Dhaka Medical College Hospital,” he added.
“But in urban areas, the impoverished population do not know that a public health care system exists there where they can get the medical attention they need.”
Nasir blamed the lack of government initiative to get the urban poor under public health care system.
“These facilities are mainly under the jurisdiction of city corporations and municipalities. Their priorities lie with other development projects, so health care and the development of medical facilities in accordance with the population’s needs gets little attention,” he said.
Because they do not have access to professional diagnosis, the urban poor often get wrong medications and sometimes succumb to diseases that could be easily treated.
“Especially in the cases of noncommunicable diseases like heart disease, their treatment – which requires hospital visits – often gets delayed and costs them much more money than necessary,” said Brig (retd) Abdul Malik, founder of National Heart Foundation.‘The existing health care system is enough’However, Malik believes that the urban poor can be served with the existing public health care services in the cities. “They only need to know that such facilities exist,” he said.
“It is mandatory on the government’s part to establish coordination among different elements of the public health care facilities in urban areas and ensure their maximum utilisation. The government should promote public facilities more and encourage people to go to public hospitals,” he added.
However, AKM Saiedur Rahman, line director (hospital) at the Directorate General of Health Services, thinks the government has done enough to ensure that public medical services are accessible to the poor.
“We have produced several advertisements to let people know about the health care services that the government offers. The information is available on the internet as well. If they still do not want to come to us, what can we do?” he told the Dhaka Tribune.Drug stores vastly unsupervisedAs of 2015, there are registered 119,217 drug stores – also commonly known as pharmacies – in the country, 11,834 of which are in Dhaka city alone, according to the Directorate General of Drug Adminsitration (DGDA).
There are around 30,000 more drug stores around the country which are running illegally, according to the DGDA.
Health care experts believe that the number could be well over 100,000.
In order to sell medicinal drugs, a proprietor needs to acquire a drug licence and establish a drug store, said DGDA Superintendent ATM Golam Kibria Khan.
“We conduct drives regularly to evict unlicensed drug stores,” he said.
Officials at the DGDA said the existing drug stores are more than enough to supply medicines to the entire country, which is why the medicinal drug authority stopped issuing drug licences in December last year.
Instead, the DGDA are working on establishing “model pharmacies” – drug stores that have at least 300 sq-ft of area and pharmacists who have proper knowledge of the medicines being supplied to customers.
“We do not need a hundred drug stores in a locality where 10 model pharmacies can do the job,” Kibria said. “If this concept is implemented properly, supervising them will become easier for us and people will have access to quality medicines.”
DGDA sources said 19 drug stores in Dhaka had already applied to be upgraded to model pharmacy status, Lazz Pharma and Tajreen Pharma among them.
The study, titled “Mapping the urban health care landscape,” was conducted in Dhaka, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Narayanganj and Khulna.
It gets even worse as there are very few drug stores which have registered pharmacists, said Sohana Shafique, deputy project coordinator (health system and population) at the ICDDRB.
“In the majority of the drug stores, drug sellers supply medicines to customers without informing them about the possible side effects of those medicines,” she told the Dhaka Tribune.
“People living in the rural areas are in a much better situation when it comes to health care,” said AMM Nasir Uddin, senior fellow at Dhaka-based think tank Power and Participation Research. “The health care system in rural Bangladesh is very systematic and well-known. People know that when they get sick, they should first go to the community clinic, and when they need more specialised help, they should go to the union health complex.”
Then there are upazila-level and district-level health care facilities. “If all those institutions fail to alleviate their illness, they get referred to hospitals like Dhaka Medical College Hospital,” he added.
“But in urban areas, the impoverished population do not know that a public health care system exists there where they can get the medical attention they need.”
Nasir blamed the lack of government initiative to get the urban poor under public health care system.
“These facilities are mainly under the jurisdiction of city corporations and municipalities. Their priorities lie with other development projects, so health care and the development of medical facilities in accordance with the population’s needs gets little attention,” he said.
Because they do not have access to professional diagnosis, the urban poor often get wrong medications and sometimes succumb to diseases that could be easily treated.
“Especially in the cases of noncommunicable diseases like heart disease, their treatment – which requires hospital visits – often gets delayed and costs them much more money than necessary,” said Brig (retd) Abdul Malik, founder of National Heart Foundation.‘The existing health care system is enough’However, Malik believes that the urban poor can be served with the existing public health care services in the cities. “They only need to know that such facilities exist,” he said.
“It is mandatory on the government’s part to establish coordination among different elements of the public health care facilities in urban areas and ensure their maximum utilisation. The government should promote public facilities more and encourage people to go to public hospitals,” he added.
However, AKM Saiedur Rahman, line director (hospital) at the Directorate General of Health Services, thinks the government has done enough to ensure that public medical services are accessible to the poor.
“We have produced several advertisements to let people know about the health care services that the government offers. The information is available on the internet as well. If they still do not want to come to us, what can we do?” he told the Dhaka Tribune.Drug stores vastly unsupervisedAs of 2015, there are registered 119,217 drug stores – also commonly known as pharmacies – in the country, 11,834 of which are in Dhaka city alone, according to the Directorate General of Drug Adminsitration (DGDA).
There are around 30,000 more drug stores around the country which are running illegally, according to the DGDA.
Health care experts believe that the number could be well over 100,000.
In order to sell medicinal drugs, a proprietor needs to acquire a drug licence and establish a drug store, said DGDA Superintendent ATM Golam Kibria Khan.
“We conduct drives regularly to evict unlicensed drug stores,” he said.
Officials at the DGDA said the existing drug stores are more than enough to supply medicines to the entire country, which is why the medicinal drug authority stopped issuing drug licences in December last year.
Instead, the DGDA are working on establishing “model pharmacies” – drug stores that have at least 300 sq-ft of area and pharmacists who have proper knowledge of the medicines being supplied to customers.
“We do not need a hundred drug stores in a locality where 10 model pharmacies can do the job,” Kibria said. “If this concept is implemented properly, supervising them will become easier for us and people will have access to quality medicines.”
DGDA sources said 19 drug stores in Dhaka had already applied to be upgraded to model pharmacy status, Lazz Pharma and Tajreen Pharma among them.