Engaging Private sector in health target of SDG

Abstract

Private sector is playing increasingly significant role to meet the targets of SDGs in all countries. In Bangladesh, healthcare is offered either through government-run hospitals or through privately-run clinics but the private sector is also leading in health sector service. The role of NGO in health sector is significant and they were working almost independently. The per capita per annum health expenditure is only about USD 27. Bangladesh spends 3.7% of GDP on health care and two-third of the health care expenditure is paid from out-of-pocket and rest is government free treatment for government officials and small part is from health insurance.

15 % of sick people were not treated due to their inability to pay for the relatively high cost of health care. Around 6.4 million or 4 % of people in Bangladesh get poorer every year due to excessive health costs. The public health facilities are located based on the administrative layout. For administrative purposes, the country is divided into 6 divisions, 64 districts, 508 sub-districts, and 4,466 unions. There are a total of 2,983 registered private hospitals around the country which provide 45,485 functional beds as of 2013. The bed-density in the private sectors then stands at 0.031%. All the 60 Medical College in private sector have hospital and medical services. At present there are 4,280 registered private hospitals and clinics and 9,061 diagnostic centres in the country.

93% of the countries had consulted the private sector in reviewing their national strategy and progress on the SDGs, 68% recognized private investment as a crucial alternative means to complement public expenditure on the SDGs, and 43% of the reported efforts made by the countries to develop more public-private partnerships on SDG implementation.