Speakers at a pre-budget virtual discussion on Tuesday opined that of the total health expenditure in Bangladesh, 73 percent comes from the pockets of the citizens. The remaining 27 percent is borne from the health budget of the government.
Former Governor of Bangladesh Bank- Professor Dr. Atiur Rahman, while addressing the discussion, said that to relieve the citizens from this burden of ‘out of pocket health expenditure’, government needs to increase the share of health sector in the national budget. Usually more or less 5 percent of the national budget is allocated for health sector. Dr. Rahman has urged to increase this ratio to 7 to 8 percent in the coming fiscal year and set the target of raising this ratio to 10 to 12 percent in the medium term.
He said these while speaking at an online discussion session titled ‘National Policy Dialogue on Health Budget’, organized by non-government think tank Unnayan Shamannay.
AFM Ruhal Haque, MP, Pankaj Nath, MP, Md. Amirul Alam, MP, Lutfun Nesa Kan, MP and Aroma Dutta, MP were present in the meeting. Specialist discussants at the event were- the BIDS Director General- Dr. Binayak Sen, Dhaka University Professor Dr. Syed Abdul Hamid, and eminent sociologist Khondoker Shakhawat Ali.
On behalf of Unnayan Shamannay, Dr. Atiur presented proposals about increasing budget allocation for the health sector along with specific proposals about increasing allocations for development projects, allocations for primary healthcare and for medicine provided free of cost at government-run healthcare facilities.
Aroma Dutta, MP agreed that increasing allocations for medicine (to be provided free of cost) can reduce the financial pressure on the lower income households to a significant extent. About a significant share of development allocations for the health sector remaining unspent, Lutfun Nesa, MP opined that enhancing overall management quality and governance is required to overcome this challenge. In this regard, Dr. Atiur reminded that certain ministries already have a good track record of development spending, and the ministry of health can take learn from those experiences. Former Health Minister- Ruhal Haque, MP proposed to start thinking about developing a separate health cadre for the public service to ensure better management of the health sector.
Dr. Binayak Sen, in his remarks, drew attention to the idea of health insurance schemes for poor and lower-middle income households not being viable enough at the moment, and urged to start planning about a universal healthcare program for these segments of the population.
The online dialogue session was moderated by Unnayan Shamannay’s Senior Project Coordinator Shaheen Ul Alam.
