The Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Market in Bangladesh: Where Do Poor Women Go?

Posted: 14 Oct 2011 Last revised: 19 Oct 2011

See all articles by Sabina Faiz Rashid

Sabina Faiz Rashid

BRAC University

Owasim Akram

BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Hilary Standing

Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Date Written: May 1, 2011

Abstract

In Bangladesh, the formal public health system provides few services for common sexual and reproductive health problems such as white discharge, fistula, prolapse, menstrual problems, reproductive and urinary tract infections, and sexual problems. Recent research has found that poor women and men resort to informal providers for these problems instead. This paper draws on interviews with 303 providers and 312 women from two rural and one urban area of Bangladesh from July 2008 to January 2009. Both informal and formal markets played an important role in treating these problems, including for the poor, but the treatments were often unlikely to resolve the problems. Providers ranged from village doctors without formal training to qualified private practitioners. The health system is heavily marketised and boundaries between “public” and “private” are blurred. There exists a huge, neglected domain of sexual and reproductive health needs which are a source of silent suffering and for which there are no trained health staff providing treatment in government facilities. The complexity of this situation calls for engaged debate in Bangladesh on how to improve the quality of existing services, discourage or prevent obviously harmful practices, and develop financing mechanisms to enable women to access effective treatment, regardless of the source, for these neglected problems.

Keywords: sexual and reproductive health problems, formal and informal health care providers, treatment-seeking behaviour, marketisation, Bangladesh

Suggested Citation

Rashid, Sabina Faiz and Akram, Owasim and Standing, Hilary, The Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Market in Bangladesh: Where Do Poor Women Go? (May 1, 2011). Reproductive Health Matters, Vol. 19, No. 37, pp. 21-31, 2011, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1922664

Sabina Faiz Rashid (Contact Author)

BRAC University ( email )

66 Mohakhali C/A
Dhaka 1212 Bangladesh
Dhaka, 1212
Bangladesh

Owasim Akram

BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh ( email )

66 Mohakhali C/A
Dhaka 1212 Bangladesh
Dhaka, 1212
Bangladesh

Hilary Standing

Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK ( email )

Brighton
Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9RE
United Kingdom

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