Corruption in Medical Sector in Bangladesh

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The report of TIB showed us that both of government and private services of medical sector are highly corrupted. Exchange of bribe is noticeable in every sphere of medical sectors. These sorts of corruption would hamper the service of medical sector all over the country. We can realize from this report that from recruitment to transfer; everything can be possible in exchange of bribe. That report really presented us the vulnerable scenario of our medical sector. The TIB also urged for updating the laws related to the healthcare service and its enforcement.

People of all levels and classes are suffering a lot for corruption in medical sector in our country. As rich people of our country have economic ability, they can go abroad to take better medical service. But, poor people of our country have to suffer a lot as they have not sufficient money to get better medical service.

According to the news of IRIN News, Bangladeshi health sector corruption hit on poor in the hardest way. According to patients interviewed by IRIN, however, even in emergency situations, many said they were unable to access services, including medicine, unless a bribe was paid first - and in a country where 31.5 percent of people live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank, many could not pay."While corruption affects everyone, the poorer sections of society suffer more," TIB's executive director, Iftekharuzzaman, who goes by only one name, said. "The poor will be affected if we cannot stop corruption in the health sector." He called on doctors and other health professionals in public hospitals to be held accountable. (IRIN News, DHAKA, 12 February 2013, http://www.irinnews.org/news/2013/02/12/bangladeshi-health-sector-corruption-hits-poor-hardest )

That news report showed us that how badly corruptions of medical sector affect on poor and helpless people. We can easily realize the suffering of general people regarding good health service from this report, which should be taken in concern of government.

For controlling corruption and ensuring transparency, proper accountability of doctors and medical institutions are needed. Without ensuring accountability, it is impossible to control corruption in medical sector. According to a publication of Asia Pacific Observatory, None of the mechanisms, in effect, has proved to be efficient in ensuring accountability. In fact, the existing structure and management of health organization does not facilitate health system accountability. This has been reflected in the high absenteeism of doctors in rural areas, corruption, poor service quality, and above all, the poor performance of service providers. Weak accountability is the outcome of some prevalent aspects of management: an inaccurate job description, performance-evaluation based on subjective criteria, a nonfunctioning system of reward and punishment and weak monitoring systems. (http://www.wpro.who.int/asia_pacific_observatory/hits/series/bgd_health_system_review.pdf)

This report showed us the effect of less accountability in medical sector. Absenteeism, poor service quality and many other performance discrepancies are occurred in medical sector because of less accountability of doctors, employees and medical institutions.

Government of Bangladesh should take necessary steps to wipe out corruption problem of medical sector from our country. Controlling of this problem is not a very hard task. Government can easily eliminate this problem by taking necessary steps and ensuring accountably in every aspect of medical sector. On the other hand, we have some responsibilities regarding this issue. We have to raise awareness and spread ethical education in society to eliminate this curse from our society.

The purpose of my research is to find out the real scenario of corruption in medical sector in Bangladesh and the suffering of general people for it. I would use secondary data and information in my research paper which I briefly mentioned in the background.

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Research Questions

In my research I plan to investigate the impact of corruption in the medical sector of Bangladesh. My research will address the following research question:

1. What are the main reasons for corruption in medical sector in Bangladesh?

2. Why is it so difficult for us to keep our health safe?

3. How can this corruption may effect our population?

4. Is there any economic impact of this corruption?

5. What sort of initiatives Bangladesh Govt. should take to wipeout this problem from our society?

Hypothesis

The medical sector is one of the areas where the corruption occurred widely in our country. From my research, I expected to find whether most of the people are suffered with this or not. I assumed that too much desire for profit margin, dishonesty, and the tendency to become rich very quickly are the main reasons behind the corruption in the medical sector. I thought that general people are helpless and they trust the doctor blindly and since there are no accountabilities of doctors and authorities are taking the advantages of the situation and getting themselves involved in corruption relentlessly. I also thought that it is hampering the poor and illiterate peoples; as they don’t have general knowledge about the medical sector. I surmised that corruption in medical sector has a very bad effect on our economy. I also assumed that poor and illiterate people are losing money and those who are involved in the medical sector, are becoming rich. I expected that if our governments enforce proper law then we can remove the corruption from this sector.

Research Methodology

For my primary research, I will conduct a survey of a representative sampling of the general public in Dhaka and interview people actually have had victims of this and find out what significant changes took place in their lives after that incident. To that end I will design a questionnaire with different types of questions so as to get a range of useful data which will help me to any my research questions.

For my secondary research, I plan to use the resources of the library and will also consult few books and articles of corruptions in medical sectors, etc. I will also browse the internet and use standard search engines like google.