Health in Bangladesh

Health In Bangladesh

Health and education levels remain relatively low, although they have improved recently as poverty (31% at 2010) levels have decreased. Most Bangladeshis continue to live on subsistence farming in rural villages. For those in rural areas, village doctors with little or no formal training constitute 62% of the healthcare providers practising modern medicine and the formally trained providers are occupying a mere 4% of the total health workforce. The health seeking pattern of the villagers show that nearly 70% of the patients who consulted a healthcare provider for curative services, contacted a village doctor. Showing clearly that village doctors are a major player in the healthcare system. As such, health problems abound, springing from poor water quality and prevalence of infectious diseases. The water crisis is acute, with widespread bacterial contamination of surface water and arsenic contamination of groundwater. Common diseases such as Malaria, Leptospirosis and dengue were rampant in Bangladesh. In 2009, deaths due to Tuberculosis amongst the HIV-negative was 51 per 100 000 population, and prevalence of Tuberculosis was 425 per 100 000 population. The case detection rate for all forms of Tuberculosis is at 44% in 2009. Moreover, the number of cases of Malaria reported in 2009 was 79853 and cases of Leprosy reported was 5239 in 2009 and 3848 in 2010.

The poor health conditions in Bangladesh is attributed by the lack of healthcare and services provision by the government. The total expenditure on healthcare as a percentage of their GDP was only 3.35% in 2009, according to a World Bank report published in 2010. The number of hospital beds per 10 000 population is 4. The General government expenditure on healthcare as a percentage of total government expenditure was only 7.9% as of 2009 and the citizens pay most of their health care bills as the out-of-pocket expenditure as a percentage of private expenditure on health is 96.5%.