Zafrullah Chowdhury's battle against the commercialisation of healthcare

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To extend affordable healthcare for the masses Gonoshasthaya Kendra is going to open heart and transplant surgery units at its Nagar Hospital in the capital’s Dhanmondi.
The healthcare centre, which started its journey during the War of Independence in 1971 to ensure treatment to injured freedom fighters, is now providing healthcare services at an affordable cost across the country through seven hospitals and 50 sub-centres.
Gonoshasthaya founder Zafrullah Chowdhury said that it would soon open the heart and transplant units to provide quality healthcare services to people at affordable prices as 67 per cent of Bangladeshis were dying of non-communicable diseases annually.
Because of the high cost, a large number of NCD patients couldn’t afford proper treatment.
According to the World Health Organisation, at least 5,72,600 people in Bangladesh annually meet premature deaths because of non-communicable diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases top the list of deaths caused by non-communicable diseases, accounting for 31 per cent of the total deaths in Bangladesh.
Freedom fighter Zafrullah Chowdhury said that Gonoshasthaya, a public charitable trust, was established to ensure healthcare for all and it still charges according to people’s income.
Gonoshasthaya runs the largest kidney dialysis unit of the country at Nagar Hospital.
A forerunner in the health sector, Zafrullah said that for the lack of government monitoring, people were exploited at every level of the healthcare system.
The two out of seven large hospitals — Gonoshasthaya Nagar Hospital at Dhanmondi and Gonoshasthaya Kendra Hospital at Savar — were providing advanced treatment while five other hospitals were giving basic and secondary and the sub-centres were providing basic services at an affordable cost.
For annual family health insurance, Gonoshasthaya charges only Tk 200 from the poor, Tk 2000 from the middle class and 3,500 from the rich. For an individual the amount is is Tk 100 for the poor, Tk 1,000 for middle class and 1,700 for a rich non-smoking person. For a smoker it is 25 per cent higher.

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