Shawdesh Desk:

The out-of-pocket expenditure as a share of current health expenditure for Bangladesh has risen by 1.50 percentage points from the previous record.

The information was disclosed on Sunday at a program titled “Pathways to reduce household out of pocket expenditure” at a hotel in the capital based on a research of the Health Ministry.

Currently, a patient has to spend 68.50 percent of the total treatment cost which was previously 67 percent.

Patients spend a whopping 64 percent for drugs, 23 percent goes for hospital expenses (both indoors and outdoors) and 8 percent for diagnosis purposes.

The study also said that some 16.4 percent of patients refrain from seeking treatment because of high expenditure.