The government has undertaken an initiative to expand its social health services of providing financial assistance to patients of terminal diseases.
As per the new initiative, the number of terminal disease for which the government would provide financial assistance would be increased, including new illnesses in the list besides the existing ones.
The social welfare ministry published policy in Gazette form on October last.
In the gazette, it has been said that poor patients who are in serious conditions from cancer, kidney, liver cirrhosis, paralysis, thalassemia and congenital heart disease, will get maximum help from the government.
In this regard, landless children, destitute, refugees, elderly citizens, widows, divorced, downtrodden, childless, and isolated families will get priority.
Under the Hospital Social Services (HSS) of the Social Welfare Department, each mentioned patient will get an allowance of Tk 50,000.
To this end, preventive medicine expert Dr Lenin Chowdhury on Sunday told Bangladesh Post: “We congratulate the government for such initiative. This will certainly help the poor people who are suffering from chronic diseases. But I think the government can make the application procedure easier by introducing digital health card or insurance policies.”
“With this, if any patients do not get proper health support from government health service, they may get treatment from other private health organization, which treatment cost would be deducted from the health card or insurance”, he concluded. It is to be noted that, under the HSS, the Social Welfare Department is providing financial allowance to poor people. Under the ‘Support Service for Vulnerable Group’ project, the department has provided health allowance to cancer, kidney, and cirrhosis-affected patients from 2009 to 2013 fiscal year. The support service is continuing at the country’s 94 hospitals in 492 upazilas.
But, paralyzed and poor patients having congenital heart disease were not included in the government financial aid programme before the 2013-14 fiscal year, but is now added to HSS. Thalassemia is also added in the list.
According to Bangladesh Cancer Society statistics, at present, there are 12 lakh cancer patients in the country.
Due to inadequate medical treatment and unawareness of the common people, 66 percent of the patients face premature death. According to government statistics, there are more than two crores of kidney patients. Of the total, 40 percent of the patient’s kidney is disabled. Liver cirrhosis is lengthy and complex disease. About 5-12 people in one thousand are having stroke; sometimes people even become paralyzed due to stroke.
Besides, 30,000 children were born with heart disease, but as the treatment is expensive most of them died prematurely. At present, there are 3.5 lakh children with thalassemia, according to a government statistics.
To this end, former Vice-Chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Dr Kamrul Hassan told the media that this a great move on the part of the government. The newly included disease treatment is expensive and complex too. Poor patients cannot continue their treatment, but the government's new initiative will help them to get medical care.
In the policy signed by Social Welfare Ministry, Secretary Zuena Aziz stated that an individual is allowed to apply once in a year. While applying necessary documents along with National Identity Card must have attached. If any false information is provided in the application, financial support will be cancelled.
