Patients must expend exorbitant sums to get passes for treatment in Bangladesh

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Patients from Arakan State who wish to cross the border into Bangladesh for medical treatment have to spend a large amount of money in order to receive border passes from the concerned authorities of Maungdaw, said a patient who has been to Bangladesh for treatment.

“At present, in Burma, there are no available medicines or specialist doctors in northern Arakan, so patients who are suffering from serious diseases, such as heart disease, kidney failure, cancer, chronic ulcers, Hypertatist B or C, are very unfortunate. A few of them are able to go to Bangladesh for treatment, but only those who can afford the expenditures. The rest of patients die without proper medical treatment in their hometowns.”

Patients who want to go to Bangladesh for medical treatment must spend a lot of money to obtain border passes, which are usually used for business proposes. However, even for medical purposes, the concerned authorities treat the locals as businesspeople and demand a large sum of money.

At first, a person requiring medical treatment must get a recommendation letter from a village chairman. For this, the patient has to pay 1,000 kyats, and then pay 500 kyats to get a form from the Trade and Commerce Association (TCA) of Maungdaw. After that, the person must pay 8,000 kyats to the Secretary of TCA, and deposit 16,000 kyats in a bank, and also pay 6,000 kyats to receive a TCA membership card, and another 500 kyats to fulfill the card. In addition, the patient has to pay 1,000 kyats to the TCA, 6,000 kyats to buy a book, 1,000 kyats to the Nasaka gate of exit and entry point of Maungdaw, and 1,000 kyats to board a ferry boat, said a relative of a patient who once took medical treatment in Bangladesh.

If the patient has no identity card (national registration card), he/she has to pay an additional 21,000 kyats to the immigration office. In this way, the patient must expend at least 62,000 kyats only to receive a border pass to go to Bangladesh. The process takes a minimum of two-to-three days.

In Bangladesh there are many more expenses, such as those for doctors’ fees, tests, medicines, food, and accommodation. A patient can only get permission for 7 days only. If the patient needs extra days to stay in Bangladesh for treatment, he/she will have to pay an additional 1000 kyats per day, another relative of the patient said.

As a result, many patients who have suffered from treatable diseases in northern Arakan have died in their homes without getting proper medical treatment because of lack of quality treatment in Burma and the difficulty of accessing care in Bangladesh