WHO Bangladesh/ M Rahmat Ali
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) shared the findings of the report The Costs of the Bangladesh Essential Health Service Package: Fourth Health Population and Nutrition Sector Programme. Senior officials of the ministry, academics and development partners participated in the information dissemination event.
The report estimates the cost of the updated Bangladesh Essential Services Package (ESP) for 2016 to 2022 by interventions and delivery channels in public sector. This is an essential document for policy planners to develop a feasible and efficient ESP package.
Furthermore, these estimates will be useful for planning the next sector programme, setting targets of the ESP coverage through public delivery channels, as well as for conducting the mid-term review of the fourth HPNSP.
Mr. Ashadul Islam, Secretary of Health Services Division, MOHFW and Chief Guest at the dissemination event, urged Government units to use the costing estimates for informed decision-making in health financing. He also called all key stakeholders for conducting further studies based on these estimates aiming at gaining efficiency and maintaining equity in the health sector.
Addressing the event, Dr Bardan Jung Rana, WHO Country Representative to Bangladesh, strongly advocated for increased funding for health, particularly for primary health care, as guided in the study report, for pursuing the country’s aspiration of achieving the goals of universal health coverage.
The analysis was conducted by International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) under the leadership of Health Economics Unit (HEU), Health Services Division of the MOHFW, with the support from the World Health Organization (WHO) Bangladesh and technical support from USAID-funded Health Financing & Governance (HFG).
WHO remains committed in supporting the Government of Bangladesh to generate evidence based policy options towards achieving the ambitious goal of Universal Health Coverage.