Form autonomous body to supervise pvt healthcare sector: TIB

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) today recommended forming an independent body in a bid to check the "irregularities" in the private healthcare sector across the country.

TIB Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman came up with the recommendation at a press conference titled "Private medical service: Challenge for good governance, ways of overcoming" at TIB office in Midas Centre of Dhaka's Dhanmondi area this morning.

The conference was organised to unveil a report of a survey conducted last year on the operations of 116 privately run hospitals and diagnostic centres in the country.

While disclosing its findings today, TIB said the organisations -- 66 private hospitals and 50 diagnostic centres -- remain uncontrolled and unsupervised.

The TIB researchers said the private medical centres in the country have extreme tendency of commercialisation and are running profit centric operations.

Those organisations have focus on quantitative expansion rather than qualitative, the researchers said.

The private medical and diagnostic centres in district and upazila levels are inefficient and irregular, TIB claims to have found after talking to 706 persons directly and indirectly connected to the private medical service including the authorities and patients.