Our policy has some flaws

It will cost a lot of money to introduce universal health coverage, insurance and pension facilities in Bangladesh . However, it is not difficult to proceed with the right plan. Public health is the most important of these three. Many countries across the world are now struggling with the health sector. Even the developed countries are grappling with the matter.

The question is how is our basic healthcare system? Does it exist at all? Having beautiful and well-decorated private hospitals never indicates towards the development of medical system. We need to see to what measures the government has taken for the minimum treatment of the common people. The current state of medical system in the country is unspeakable.

We can look up our medical sector by taking Thailand, Vietnam and such other countries as our role models who did significant improvement in their respective healthcare sectors.

But there is something wrong with our policy. For example, we may ask why the allocation in the budget for health sector and railway sector will be almost the same. Why did the railway sector suddenly become so important? How many passengers take train and how many goods do the trains carry? How much revenue does the sector generate? In fact, everything is going on an ad hoc basis.

Besides, when it comes to public insurance, there are many things to say. It is important to bring people's confidence in the insurance sector first of all. The regulatory body of the insurance sector has to perform its duty properly in this regard. However, once the universal pension facility is introduced, the universal insurance will no longer be needed.

We need a universal pension system. The need for it has further increased due to the rise in the average life expectancy of the people. There are a large number of senior citizens in the country who have been going through real trouble.

But is the government really considering the process of introducing universal pension system? Where will the government get so much money? They can arrange the money, of course. But they have failed to duly collect the revenue.

However, the key feature of all welfare states is to make arrangements so that people do not suffer in the old age. The government must be willing to do anything about it. Following the models of other countries, the government can launch it in a small scale. Upon receiving positive outcomes, universal pension system can be introduced widely. But as far as I am aware, the government is not taking any of these initiatives. In that case we have reasons to be disappointed.

* Akbar Ali Khan was an adviser to a former caretaker government. This piece, originally published in Prothom Alo's print edition, has been rewritten in English by Farjana Liakat