THAT the health minister came under fire in parliament on Tuesday, as New Age reported on Wednesday, for his ministry’s ‘mismanagement and failure to reach health care to the people’ will certainly go down well with the people at large. Most of the lawmakers who took part in the discussion complained that while hospitals and health complexes in their constituencies lack adequate manpower and logistics, the minister continues to make pledges to open new hospitals. Moreover, he is yet to the doctors, especially who are posted to different districts but stay in the capital Dhaka on tenuous grounds, a problem that even the prime minister repeatedly ordered the minister to immediately resolve.
Moreover, as a lawmaker from Bandarban complained, there are some physicians who are deployed in the hill districts and take risk allowance for hills but work elsewhere, whereas the minister is totally ignorant of this. Meanwhile, the manner in which the minister sought to defend the errant doctor of an expensive private hospital in the capital, who has reportedly made a female patient bear a constant pain since August in 2009 when the physician stitched the patient’s abdomen without removing some bandages following a surgery, is outrageous.
It is pertinent to recall that the ruling Awami League pledged in its electoral manifesto to ‘ensure health facilities to every citizen’. Hence, the health minister cannot wash his hands of the issues in question just after repeating some commitments made so far on more occasions than one in parliament. He needs to realise that his failure, if not unwillingness, to live up to the commitments also violates the constitution that ordains the state to ensure basic healthcare facilities for all citizens.