Health Sector Governance: An Overview of the Legal and Institutional Framework in Bangladesh

Abstract

The on-going COVID-19 outbreak has unveiled the inadequacy, inefficiency, mismanagement and deeply ingrained poor governance in the healthcare systems of many national jurisdictions. In addressing these drawbacks and challenges, the present article examines the organizational structure of the healthcare system in Bangladesh with a specific focus on its legal, policy and regulatory frameworks. It has been noted that the health sector of the country has been long struggling due to challenges emanating from deficient national policy priorities, absence of dynamic stewardship and effective planning and management, high inequity and low quality in service delivery, lack and abuse of resources, widespread corruption, inadequacy of health professionals and urban centred service structure, among others. In addition to mapping out a coherent and comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for the nation’s healthcare system, a key recommendation of the paper places particular emphasis on devising short, intermediate and long-term plans and policies in coordination with other relevant sectors and agencies-both public and private- ensuring optimum accountability, transparency and predictability in reorganising a comprehensive sectoral approach to health service administration and management.