The Bangladesh healthcare system suffers from many shortcomings. This drives not only the affluent and the middle-class, but also the poor Bangladeshi to travel cross-border to India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia for medical treatment.

Although a new research by ‘Lancet’ shows that Bangladesh has score 52 whereas India ranks 154 out of 195 countries in terms of access to healthcare, which is worse than Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana and Liberia. Bangladesh, for example, has per capita income slightly more than half of India’s; yet, Bangladesh ranks 7th among these 15th nations on the healthcare index.

As we know that health being one of the important factors for the development of the country is to be taken care of properly. If people will be healthy it will have multidirectional effect in keeping the atmosphere in the society conducive to the development of the country. Students being healthy will study in a better way and will become an asset for the country.

If youth will be healthy they will work efficiently and will be more productive and add to the GDP of the country.

If women will be healthy they will take care of the children and home in a better way. If people will be healthy they will have more time to work and more energetically.

They will save money and time for not spending in taking care of health of their own and that of the family members. But the present research by ‘Lancet’ with respect to health in India is not good. Still in the global medical tourism market India captured USD 50 billion to 69 billion. Medical tourism in Asia grew to USD 4.4 billion by 2012.

Globally the market size is expected to reach USD 131.35 billion by 2025, expanding at a CAGR of 20.24% during the forecast period. Since, Thailand is projected to remain at the forefront of the market during the forecast period.

Around 37 private hospitals are accredited by JCI in Thailand with excellent service. Next Singapore is also a prominent medical tourism destination in the global arena due to availability of most advanced diagnostic equipment, an efficient healthcare system with high-quality care, and internationally accredited hospitals. The market in India is estimated to experience significant growth over the coming years owing to increasing healthcare investments.

Patients coming to India are mostly from Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa, Bhutan, the US, Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Some of the key players are Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, Bumrungrad International Hospital, KPJ Healthcare Berhad, Fortis Healthcare, Samitivej Hospital, Raffles Medical Group, and Prince Court Medical Centre. On an average 100 people visit our Dhaka office every day to know about hospitals and doctors in India. If access of healthcare index of Bangladesh is much better score than India, then why Bangladeshi people travel to India for treatment?

One of the key factors to grow medical tourism for the private hospital business is accreditation system. India has its own hospital accreditation system and this create accountability to the drivers to maintain quality and safety.

Globally most popular accreditation system is Joint Commissions

International which is US based Gold seal of Approval. In Bangladesh, only Apollo Hospital Dhaka accredited and reaccredited by JCI. No other hospitals apply for this gold accreditation in Bangladesh, whereas 38 hospitals and healthcare organisations are JCI accredited in India.

One of the reasons for this large number of accreditation is their National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH:

https://www.nabh.co/introduction. aspx) accreditation system in India. And more than 96 hospitals are already accredited by NABH, India.

Do we have any such accreditation system in Bangladesh? The simple answer is NO…even though we have Bangladesh Accreditation Board (BAB) under Ministry of Commerce but they mostly worked on ISO, hence, there is no hospital or healthcare providers’ specific national accreditation system present in Bangladesh. A pilot project had been working under health economic unit since 2012 but no further development or at least there is no practical activity to be noted to watch till now. Despite the fact, our access to healthcare index is much higher than India, but our uality of services is not measurable, no accountability or at least no such accreditation system is available in Bangladesh. There is a dire need of such accreditation system for Bangladesh and developing partners and policymakers should seriously think of such system to monitor and accredit hospitals and healthcare providers in Bangladesh.

Usually, healthcare accreditation systems accredit organisation or hospital for 3 years and then monitor their performance and then reaccredit for another 3 years.

This Bangladesh hospital accreditation system white paper was already drafted and health economic unit under Ministry of Health has been working on it. It is the time to call for piloting, testing and implementing hospital accreditation system with private hospitals and this will also increase the interest among entrepreneurs to invest more in this sector.

The opportunity for implementing healthcare or hospital accreditation system in Bangladesh is a need based demand for the country, not only to strengthen the healthcare delivery system but to streamline accountability and responsibility of the healthcare providers towards community, Ministry of Health. This will ultimately improve the current health system shortcoming, and extend its scope towards private medical college accreditation system. This article is call for action to all policymakers, developing partners, Ministry of Health to go live on Hospital Accreditation System for Bangladesh.