THE government move to set fees for services offered for health services in the private sector, where charges are often said to be high, is welcome. The health minister at a meeting with representatives of private hospitals on October 6 said that the government would classify such facilities based on the quality of services and the cost for treatment would be accordingly determined. The minister also advised the representatives to conduct a medical equipment and human resource assessment and advised them not to admit patients beyond their expertise and capacity. The government has, however, taken too long to initiate the process and it appears that the minister has discussed the tentative plan without any deadline or has not specified how to enforce the fees set. When public concern is that the clinics, hospitals and diagnostic centres run on profiteering interests and medical negligence is commonplace, the health ministry needs to do much more than issuing verbal advice to the sector and the government needs to have a concrete plan to bring the private healthcare facilities under its regulatory purview.

Successive governments have for about three decades allowed private-sector medical facilities to run at their will. They even amended the Medical Practice and Private Clinics and Laboratories (Regulation) Ordinance 1982 to ensure their profiteering interests. Licensing rules for the establishment of private hospitals, clinics or diagnostic centres have, rather, been relaxed. Price charts for medical services have not been regularly revised. Besides, public health administrators are yet to upgrade medical facilities, such as intensive care management, in public hospitals in divisions and districts. It, therefore, leaves patients in remote areas with no choice but to seek services in the private sector. There are several High Court orders that asked the government to set prices for services offered and to set up committees to draft regulations for private-sector healthcare providers, but the government has not promptly complied with the court directives. The scam in Covid testing that shocked the nation is the ultimate expression of such regulatory failures and lack of commitment to bringing order in the health sector. It is high time that the government adopted a regulation to monitor the private healthcare facilities and ended the process of unregulated privatisation of the health sector.

It is evident that the government has created a situation in which the private sector has more control over health services and regulatory mechanisms have failed the patients. The out-of-pocket public health expenditure in Bangladesh is higher than in other South Asian countries. The health ministry must, therefore, do much more than casually offering advice and sharing tentative plans with representatives of private hospitals and clinics. It must expedite the process and announce a treatment and diagnosis fee chart and ensure that the cost is effectively enforced.