A recent report by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) revealed that 15% of the people seeking services related to Covid-19 testing had to deal with irregularities and corruption. They had to cough up money over the prescribed fee for giving samples quicker and getting reports on time or early.
The findings from the report, “Governance Challenges in Tackling COVID-19 Crisis: Inclusion and Transparency”, were released at a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
The research found that 14.9% had to pay more (Tk116 in government laboratories, and Tk4,425 in private labs on average) than the prescribed fee, 4.4% had to pay additional money (Tk113 on average in government labs) to get a report on time or faster, 6.1% had to pay additional money (Tk66 on average in government lab) to give a sample quickly or get the serial first.
The research was conducted by Rabeya Akter Konika, research associate, Kawsher Ahamed, research associate, and Md Julkarnayeen, research fellow of TIB. Data were collected from August 2021 to March 2022.
The study found that 26.1% of the Covid-19 testing service recipients have faced multiple problems while giving samples and getting test reports, which include unavailability of RT-PCR laboratories in all districts, problems with online registration and delays in getting reports.
The extra cost discouraged people, especially the poor and the marginalised, from Covid-19 tests.
The average waiting time to give a sample in the laboratory is three hours but some of them had to wait for a maximum of 10 hours.
According to people receiving services from the hospitals, late services due to inadequate medical support caused the death of 7.8% of the patients and increased complications for 11.6% of the patients.
Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of TIB, said Bangladesh had managed the Covid crisis well compared to some neighbouring countries.
“However, marginalised people were neglected in the vaccination centres, which is a concern”, he said.
The report also revealed that 36.4% of entrepreneurs in the cottage, small and medium industries applied for incentive loans but only 11% received loans.
A total of 67.5% of the cottage, small and medium sector entrepreneurs faced various challenges, including repeated visits to banks, not getting money on time, asked to manage unnecessary and additional documents during applying for the incentive loan.
One or two women entrepreneurs were victims of sexual harassment in getting incentive loans as well.
The researchers recommended that in order to develop Covid-19 medical facilities in each district, ICU beds, RT-PCR laboratories, and other infrastructure should be installed by utilizing government and project funds.
They also recommended taking up Initiatives for free registration and vaccination for remote and marginalized people in collaboration with field level government institutions and development actors, and disbursing more amount of loans through small and cottage industry-related institution instead of banks and financial institutions.
A client experience survey was conducted over the phone with 1,850 Covid-19 service recipients from 44 districts. An 'Exit Poll' Survey was conducted in randomly selected 105 Vaccine Centres from 43 Districts, where 622 interviews were conducted with vaccine recipients from temporary vaccine centres and 3,393 interviews were conducted with vaccine recipients from permanent vaccine centres.
At the same time, a survey was conducted over the phone with 425 cottage, small and medium entrepreneurs, and 671 people from 48 marginalized communities in 43 districts were contacted for the research.
