THE HEALTHCARE COST OF CORRUPTION

-Life is so precious. Quality healthcare is also a very essential part of human right. Corruption in health care is neither normal nor acceptable; it is a total crime.

Data collections according to researchers

In fact, Corruption in the health budget has messed up Nepal’s health system. According to the researchers, the funds lost through it could otherwise provide lifesaving medicines and many more healthcare supplies, fund operations as well as hire more skilled healthcare workers. 

According to research team, the Nepali government allocates not much of budget for healthcare i.e. less than 5%. Because of financial frauds and crimes, healthcare is left with even less amount of money. The report taken during 2018 by Corruption Perceptions Index, Nepal was listed one of the most corrupted countries in the world (ranking 124 out of 175).

Is Corruption in healthcare really killing Nepal?

Nowadays, it’s a total of a rampage situation in Nepal’s health system that we accept as a norm. Nepalese are getting less quality health services due to unwritten rules of corruption in healthcare sector. As a result healthcare services are degrading and causing to ultimate paralyses to the healthcare system of Nepal.

Many Nepali’s have lost their lives due to corruption in the healthcare sector. Many Nepali women have lost their lives during childbirth as well due to consequences of corruption. Even each of us may have experienced and witnessed corruption during the purchase and distribution of medicines, we can view that the price of same medicine having different rate and price tags in different stores. It’s like a total competition of marketing and selling of drugs in between the sellers about who can earn more profit. 

Besides, broken medical equipment often left is unrepaired. We can see that healthcare managers prefer to purchase new and expensive equipment rather than repairing the existing one as there is a huge loss on the purchase of those equipment’s. Most of the cases whenever a person gets sick they are are forced to visit a private health facility due to interruption of the services in the government hospitals. This ruins Nepalese trust in healthcare services.

Conclusion 

Tackling corruption in the healthcare system is very difficult, but definitely not impossible thing. The responsibility to tackle corruption does not only belong to the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority. The Nepal Medical Association, National Human Rights Commission and we should also play a very vital role in the enhancement of such laws for transparency in healthcare. 

Media engagement is equally important as well. Media should not limit the information provided by the anticorruption bodies; but rather it should do more and more investigation to uncover deep rooted corruption that are being performed by the corrupted people in the healthcare system. Likewise recently, Nepali media set a global example. It covered the story of district health officials who pocketed cash allowances by creating a list of fake mothers.

 Thus, unity, equal effort and understanding among people may lead to a peaceful and fair environment where corruption stands for a major degrading problem not a solution.