Unequal access to health care facilities and its impact on achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Bangladesh perspective

Abstract

This article aims to explain how unequal health opportunities influence the development visions of a developing economy. By employing 20 years of panel data, ordinary regression, and trend analysis, the impact of unequal access to health facilities on Sustainable development Goals (SDGs) has been explained. The empirical findings confirm that discriminatory public health opportunities highly shape the agenda-2030. The higher out-of-pocket expenditures (amount people spend on health care with their household's ability to pay) contribute to financial hardship for individuals and widen inequality in access to health care. The shortage of qualified health care providers and their unequal distributions across regions force poor people to seek services from nonqualified traditional providers. The Poor- non-poor and rural-urban disparity in access to essential health care services is also acute here in Bangladesh. In health care financing, more than 70% of costs are out-of-pocket, and it pushes a massive number of people under the poverty line every year. The associations between good health & well-being and other sustainable development goals are robust. The inability to guarantee equal public health opportunities for all profoundly impede a nation's vision to promote a peaceful and prosperous society by ending poverty, malnutrition, and stunning. Conversely, securing fairness in attaining universal health coverage and quality health care for walks of people expedites a country's vision to build a just and flourishing society.