Globalization, medical travel and healthcare management in Bangladesh

Abstract

There is an increasing evidence of people from Bangladesh travelling to neighboring countries of Asia, such as India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore for medical treatment due to poor quality of healthcare services, high cost, and non-availability of speciality medical treatment and facilities. Medical travel is a practise where patients travel to other countries for diagnostic, pathological and complex invasive surgeries due to various push factors in their home country which prevents them for getting affordable, accessible and accredited quality of medical treatment in a timely manner, due to high cost of surgery, uninsured, long waiting period, non-availability of treatment, lack of medical facilities and proper care, lack of trained doctors and nurses, ethical and regulatory reasons, corruption and inadequate public or private medical facilities. This study is based on qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine why people are travelling from Bangladesh to India for medical treatment. Quantitative data were randomly collected from six divisional cities of Bangladesh: Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshai, Barisal and Khulna and two districts Comilla and Bogra. A total of 1282 participants, out of 1450 returned the questionnaires. Data were analyzed using regression analysis. The results concluded that the pull factors that motivated Bangladeshis to travel to India for medical treatment were: low cost of surgery, qualified experienced doctors, quality of nursing care, non-availability of treatment in Bangladesh, and state of the art medical facilities and treatment in India, which concurs with the literature.