NBR scraps free-bed facility for poor by referral hospitals

Square-Hospital

The National Board of Revenue has scrapped the provision for keeping 5 per cent of beds reserved for poor patients by the referral hospitals to provide them (poor patients) free treatment and other related services just one year after the imposition of the condition, bowing down to pressure from luxury private hospitals.
The revenue board rescinded the condition under a budgetary measure for the current fiscal year following allegations from the referral hospitals that influential quarters including politicians were exerting undue pressure on them (hospitals) for allocating the reserved beds to their people.
There are also problems in ensuring the facility for poor people in absence of a proper definition of poor and mechanism for monitoring, officials said.
Under the existing law, every hospital in the country has also to keep 10 beds reserved for poor patients.
The NBR in June 2015 had put the condition of reserving 5 per cent of beds by the referral hospitals for poor as part of duty-free benefits in import of medical and diagnostic equipments enjoyed by the country’s 24 referral hospitals including BIRDEM Hospital, Apollo Hospital, Square Hospitals Limited and United Hospital Ltd Bangladesh.
There are allegations that poor people are not getting any facility from the referral hospitals while the treatment cost in those hospitals is very high.
The NBR since 2005 had been allowing duty-free import of 229 medical machinery and equipments for the country’s private referral hospitals to advance the healthcare facility in the country.
Generally, a referral hospital is one where a patient is referred to by other healthcare centres as it has better equipment and specialist physicians.
NBR officials said that they were getting applications from some referral but costly hospitals to surrender the benefit to avoid pressure from influential quarters for allocating reserved beds to their people.
But there is no provision for giving up the facility in the law, they said.
So, the NBR removed the condition, they added.
The NBR, however, imposed 1 per cent duty on import of medical equipments and machinery by the referral hospitals for the current fiscal year.
They said that poor people were not being benefited by the condition because of an ambiguity in the definition of poor as the NBR order did not make it clear who should be considered poor.
Hospitals were also not aware about the provision and what types of facility to be reserved for poor, they added.
The customs wing of the NBR in April took an initiative to check the compliance of the hospitals but it withdrew the condition before getting any report from the Directorate General of Drug Administration in this regard.
Initially, the revenue board thought to keep the free-treatment facility for outdoor patients but later it withdrew the provision completely, a senior official of the NBR told New Age.
He said that the problems could not be solved in the existing socio-political culture of the country.
It is also not clear what punitive measures may follow a failure in complying with the condition, he said.
But there is now no provision for giving up the facility, NBR officials said adding all these issues might be addressed in the next budget.
The other referral hospitals in the country include National Heart Foundation, Zainul Haque Sikder Women’s Medical College and Hospital, Khawaja Yunus Ali Medical College and Hospital, Ibrahim Iqbal Memorial Hospital, Jalalabad Rajib-Rabeya Medical & Hospital, Salauddin Specialised Hospital Limited, Ad-din Hospital, Dhaka, Delta Medical College and Hospital, Labaid Specialised Hospital, Green Life Medical College and Hospital, Enam Medical College & Hospital, Bangabandhu Memorial Hospital, Sumona Clinic General Hospital, Shaeed Monsur Ali Medical College, Dr Sirajul Islam Hospital, Care Specialised Hospital, Dhaka, Samorita Hospital, Gazi Medical College, and Ali Hospital.

Source: New Age