One of the most important areas for any nation is health care.
Unfortunately, when it comes to providing health care for the urban poor, Bangladesh is woefully lagging behind.
With a steady influx of people into the cities, due to urbanisation and internal migration, and privatised health care being anything but affordable, a significant portion of our urban population is deprived of adequate health care services.
This issue needs to be dealt with as fast as possible. But for that to happen, various existing problems within the public health care system need to fixed.
First, the government needs to make this issue a priority and take initiatives to improve the overall service the public health sector provides, ensuring that it can cater to our cities’ burgeoning population.
Secondly, too often are the diagnoses provided not up to professional medical standards. As a result, many suffer due to delays and extraneous costs.
Seemingly, the only discernible avenue for the ailing poor seems to be local drugstores, most of which don’t have registered pharmacists to provide them with professional advice.
One of the major causes behind such gross neglect seems to be a lack of awareness.
Most of the urban poor do not know that a public health care system exists, let alone knowing how and where they can get access to it.
To know that there is an entire section of our society being denied a right as basic as health care, is a sad realisation.
Needless to say, as a nation, our priorities need to be in order.
Our continuing economic development will mean nothing if most of the population is suffering because of a lacklustre health care system.
There is no mistaking it: Health care should be available to every single citizen in any country, and Bangladesh cannot be an exception in this case. Let’s work towards making that a reality.
