PHA-Exch> Seeking help in countering WB plan for privatized health services in Bangladesh (2)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Health Right <healthrightbd at gmail.com>
*

Abu Naser Khan



Protecting the Bangladesh Health System from World Bank-forced
Privatization:

A Call for Help

Bangladesh is a low-income country, with about half of its children
chronically malnourished.  Private health care is an unimaginable luxury for
most of the population, which is dependent on the government for basic
services.  Yet those essential government services are under threat, due to
the prolonged strategy of the World Bank to push the government to privatize
various sectors of the economy.  The excuse for the action is high levels of
corruption, and management problems in the government health services.  Yet
corruption mostly occurs at the level of equipment procurement and
construction, which decisions are made by high-level officials (including
funders themselves) not involved in day-to-day hospital management.  Meanwhile,
solutions to chronic mismanagement should not include giving up
responsibility for or power over operations of government health services.

The World Bank is taking advantage of the State of Emergency called by the
current, non-elected government in January 2007, which continues to date and
makes protest illegal.

This unpopular and deadly move must be stopped, or the conditions of the
poor in Bangladesh—at least half of the population—will rapidly deteriorate
even farther.  Right to health must be recognized as a basic right, not as a
privilege for those who can afford it.  The government in
Bangladesh, as elsewhere, must accept its obligation to provide basic
services to its population as part of the non-negotiable mandate of any
government, and the World Bank must understand that its attempts to
dismantle public health care around the world will not occur without
protest.

Campaigns to change government policy in Bangladesh in other areas have been
effective.  The media has given much coverage to the disastrous nature of
this planned move.  Many organizations and individuals are working together
to fight it.

But we need your help, to show that the international community stands with
the poor and disempowered of Bangladesh.  By uniting to oppose the World
Bank campaign, we can all take a stand for health, against the imposition of
market values in an area where they don't belong—the basic human right to
health.



Please join us and support Bangladesh by signing the petition.
*

We, the undersigned, call upon the World Bank to stop pressuring the
Government of Bangladesh to privatize government health services.  Health is
a basic right that should be available to all, regardless of income or
purchasing power.  By privatizing government health services, basic health
care will pass out of the reach of the majority of the population.
Bangladesh cannot afford such a dangerous policy.  The World Bank should
accept that it is the mandate of governments to provide basic services to
their populations, and that such basic services as health, education, and
provision of water, electricity, sewerage, and so on do not belong in the
hands of private, profit-making corporations.  The disastrous consequences
of such World Bank programs in other countries are well known, and the World
Bank should desist from pushing strategies that it knows are extremely
harmful, and that countries such as the United States, the main force behind
the World Bank, would never accept on its own soil.





Honorable Chief Adviser's

Caretaker Government

People's Republic of Bangladesh
Old Sangsad Bhaban, Dhaka.
Telephone- 880-2-9144848,8159896
e-mail: info at pmo.gov.bd



Honorable Heal Adviser

Caretaker Government

People's Republic of Bangladesh

Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka-1000

Telephone: 88027168008

Fax: 8809571301, 88027169077

Email: info@ mohfw.gov.bd



To

Director

Directorate General of Health Services.

Moakhali, Dhaka

88-02-8816412, 8816459

Fax: 88029886415

info at dghs.org.bd





Directorate General of Family Planning
Janasankhya Bhaban
Azimpur, Dhaka-1205

Phone : 88-02-8612323
Fax : 88-02- 8618341
e-mail :dgfp at dekko.net.bd
website : http://www.dgfp.gov.bd

World Health Organization, Bangladesh

House # 12, Road # 7,
 Dhanmondi Residential Area,
 Dhaka 1205
 Tel: (880 2) 861 4653-55, 861 6097-8
 Fax: (880 2) 861 3247
 Email: registryban at searo.who.int



United Nation Development Program
UN Offices, 18th Floor, IDB Bhaban
Agargaon, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar,
Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh

Telephone: 880 2 811 86 00

Fax: 880 2 811 31 96

Email: registry.bd at undp.org.bd, info at undp.org.bd


Health systems and services Director General of Health World Health
Orgnization Email: info at who.int

Joel Schaefer
 schaeferj at who.int

John Rainford
rainfordj at who.int <rainfordj at who.int%20>

Nada Osseiran
osseirann at who.int
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