At the height of controversy surrounding the health sector, when allegations of scams, mismanagement and corruption regarding the government’s efforts to contain Covid-19 are rife in the media, the health minister has lauded himself and his ministry for a performance well done in managing its response to Covid-19. Given the sheer scale of mishandling, chaos and inefficiencies in the sector since the outbreak of the pandemic, and the serious allegations against the ministry itself for its involvement in the Regent Hospital’s issuance of fake Covid-19 certificates as well as supply of sub-standard N-95 masks to government hospitals in April, we feel this statement is the height of irresponsibility and callousness. It highlights, once again, that the ministry is completely unwilling to even acknowledge—much less be held accountable for—the debilitating state of affairs in the health sector.
After weeks of blame game, during which DGHS made some pointed charges about how it was instructed by higher authorities at the health ministry to sign the MoU with Regent, the DG of DGHS has resigned, citing “health reasons”. The government is also making changes at the DGHS top-end to apparently manage its image. But we ask: have the critical allegations against ministry officials been investigated by the government, or is the ministry itself playing judge and jury? Even if we are to assume that the DGHS top officials were solely responsible for the incident, it does not bear well that the ministry has so little control and oversight over its own departments. And let us not forget that Regent/JKG is not an isolated case, but just a high-profile example of the countless incidents of corruption, mismanagement and inefficiencies that have all but destroyed the most important sector at this time of unprecedented health crisis.
From the onset of the pandemic, the health ministry has failed miserably to take charge of the situation and come up with a systematic plan to control the spread of Covid-19 and provide affordable and quality treatment to patients. When asked about contradictory decisions made by the government over the past months, the minister himself claimed, on multiple occasions, that he had no idea why some of those were made. Now, he is giving himself a pat on the back solely based on the fact that the fatality rates in Bangladesh are “lower” than in many other countries, ignoring that, unlike those countries, we are only testing a handful of the population. To say nothing of the fact that an additional 1,776 people have died after showing Covid-19 symptoms from March 22 to July 11, who have not been included in the official count, according to Dhaka University’s Centre for Genocide Studies.
At a time when the health ministry needs a complete and radical overhaul, the health minister’s remarks have not only disappointed us, but truly made us apprehensive about the future of the sector.