Transportation is sparse and even a danger, in some cases, due to poor roads and infrastructure. As a result, this denies much of the poorer population, concentrated in rural areas, access to private healthcare, which in itself is costly, and even public healthcare in some cases, as it is based on a prepayment method. One may be able to comprehend that those in rural areas are less healthy and face higher rates of disease and mortality due to inaccessibility. Those who cannot afford formal medical professionals turn to informal and untrained village medical “professionals.” “Village doctors provide care of questionable quality with considerable over-prescription of drugs, including the prescription of drugs that are mostly inappropriate and potentially harmful” (futurehealthsystems.org). Thus, many Bengalis do not receive proper information and education on health issues. (All information was found at wpro.who.int, lecture 14 pdf, …show more content…
In many cases, there are unofficial fees, bribes, and long waiting times just to get treatment. Because of a lack of coordination and accountability by the government, corruption within the system, lack of medical equipment, drugs, supplies and instruments, low government investment in the health sector, and habitual underspending of the health budget by the MoHFW, “many sick people every year are left untreated” due to “insufficient and unsatisfactory services,” “low quality of public and private services,” and inefficiency in utilization of resources” (wpro.who.int). Overall, there is negligence by medical professionals, shortages, absenteeism in health facilities of medical professionals from the doctor level all the way down to health inspectors and family welfare assistants because of low salaries and insufficiency of the health system. Due to “weak monitoring by regulatory bodies,” there is mismanagement throughout the whole healthcare system in terms of, drugs, equipment, and service (nhrc.org.bd). Nearly “70,000 unlicensed drug stores” throughout the country sell prescription medicine illegally, as a result (wpro.who.int). As one may be able to conclude, it is due a mixture of political, cultural, and economic inefficiencies and inequities that have acted as barriers to fully achieving the elements and goals of the