Column by Mahfuz Anam: Pandemic’s biggest lesson -- restructure health sector to handle current, future pandemics

Simplistically put, it is a "procedure vs patient" issue—meaning a "bureaucracy vs ultimate beneficiary" tussle. We, of course, need procedures to work within, otherwise systems would collapse. But of the two, there should not be any doubt as to which should get priority, especially during a pandemic. "Patients" should have been at the centre of the focus but the focus went to "procedure"—meaning bureaucratic control—and that explains why only 24 percent of the development budgetary allocation was spent in the first ten months of the last fiscal year (2020-2021). While most of the block allocation of Tk 10,000 crore for Covid-19 emergencies in the previous fiscal was unspent, patients died due to lack of emergency health services. Tragedy after tragedy occurred when the health ministry was sitting on a Tk 29,247 crore budget allocation. While there were unbelievable sufferings endured by patients all over the country, especially in the big cities including Dhaka, the ministry could not find ways to spend taxpayers' money to provide emergency services to the sick.