EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

         

 

Public hospitals shorthanded

Urgent action called for

The health sector is facing an acute crisis of physicians due to brain drain of specialist doctors from public to private hospitals. An exclusive report in a popular Bangla Daily has narrated how the doctors who earned their degrees from government medical colleges are leaving their jobs to work in the private hospitals for higher salaries. And this constant drain is telling upon the state of public health of the country. This is in addition to the doctors posted at district levels and rural stations preferring to move to the capital city.

At present half of the around four and a half thousand specialist doctors' posts have fallen vacant. The poor are the ultimate victim of this situation. Though it is the lure of the city and of better prospect that have drawn them out of their previously assigned locations, some of their grievances cannot also be dismissed out of hand. Apart from the common resentments about poor pay, lack of necessary infrastructure to accommodate their families at their places of posting in rural areas, many raised other concerns having to do with their career advancement. Postings and promotions, more often than not, are allegedly awarded more on partisan considerations than on merit. The situation has aggravated after the year 2000, many of the doctors complained. Transfers also follow the same rule.

In view of the realities on the ground, one cannot lay the blame entirely at the specialist physicians' doorsteps.

Does it then imply that the public hospitals where the poor patients can afford to get some treatment will continue to suffer from paucity of expert doctors? But we cannot hope to resolve the crisis through exhortations or giving the doctors a good talking-to. The situation needs addressing with pragmatism and prudence. While the doctors' genuine problems have to be solved, they must also be reminded of their sacred duty to the people.

In fine, the government needs to go all-out to take urgent action in the matter.

Fruits gone lethally toxic

Compelling HC directives

This is the second time in a year that the High Court has issued directives to a number of authorities to eliminate fruit contamination by injection of chemicals. It is to be noted that a previous set of directives for punishing traders guilty of the murderous offence had a short-lived effect.

What the court interventions go to show is the flagrant nature of violation of law in the public health domain. On the one hand, those dealing in fruits ranging from gathering through transporting and storing at wholesale points to releasing for retail selling, are either active players or abettors in the crime. Carbide is used to ripen fruits pre-maturely and formalin for a longer shelf-life.

The malady of treating human life as a plaything is widespread, well-networked and entrenched. This is fuelled by a ravenous appetite for quick buck and lucre of profit margins at every step of the marketing process. So much so that those practitioners brazenly go about the business without the slightest prick in their conscience. They seem to have gone beyond the pale of moral counseling. Indeed they need to be made into examples of severe punishment.

If we delve into why the high judiciary felt the need to intervene, the government agencies responsible for food safety are only left to be hanging their faces in shame. It's an administrative failure in the basics interspersed with corruption. This is a collective dysfunction on the part a plethora of government agencies. Everybody's business is an orphan.

This impels a designated authority to be the nodal agency to ensure compliance with the court directives. There should be a composite oversight committee at the apex with representatives from agencies responsible for safety of edibles. The HC has suggested as much.

The lethal range of health complications created by contaminated foods, fruits being currently under spotlight because this is season for them, gives rise to an issue of building consumer resistance against buying contaminated fruits, either imported or locally produced.