Universal Health Coverage in Bangladesh: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

The importance of health while moving towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is emphasized as a priority agenda of the government of Bangladesh. The country is committed to move progressively towards Universal Health Coverage by 2032, which is documented by the Health Care Financing Strategy (HCFS) of Bangladesh in 2012 with some other policy documents. Though Bangladesh has succeeded considerably in achieving most of the MDG targets, it lags far behind in reaching the targets of many health indicators. High absenteeism of providers, shortage of some crucial manpower, malfunctioning equipment, inappropriate distribution of drugs, improper doctor-nurse ratio, hard to reach areas, income and regional inequity, high prevalence of certain communicable diseases, growing burden of non-communicable diseases and high out-of-pocket expenditure for services are the major challenges of health sector of Bangladesh, should be overcome to achieve Universal Health Coverage.