TUHIN SHUBHRA ADHIKARY

Titu Nakti is relieved that his 11-month-old son, Tamzid, is finally going home to Madaripur after a week-long battle with measles at a Dhaka hospital. Yet, a newly acquired debt casts a shadow over the relief.

Titu, a battery-run rickshaw van driver in his mid 30s, said he had to borrow Tk 25,000 from his neighbour just to cover his son’s medical expenses, leaving him saddled with a monthly interest payment of Tk 2,500. Locked out of the formal system, Titu is paying a punishing 120 percent annual interest rate, compared to the 14 percent he might have secured from a traditional bank.

“It’s a huge relief that my son is recovering, but I’m really worried about repaying the money I borrowed,” Titu said at the DNCC Dedicated Covid Hospital in Mohakhali, recently converted to treat measles patients.

Titu’s struggle reflects how a nationwide outbreak is pushing vulnerable families into their absolute limits.

Around 58,500 confirmed and suspected measles cases and 424 deaths linked to the disease, including nine yesterday, have been reported.

If the outbreak continues, it could add to the various financial challenges people are already facing, said Prof Shafiun Nahin Shimul, director of the Institute of Health Economics at Dhaka University.

Interviews with a dozen parents over the past three days at the DNCC hospital and the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) in Dhaka revealed a recurring pattern: families travelling to the capital after local facilities fail to handle severe complications.

For poor households, the health emergency quickly turns into financial trouble.

Many of the children have had diseases prior to measles that cost these families their savings.

After contracting measles, many parents had to turn to neighbours or informal lenders to pay for ambulance fares, medicines, and food in Dhaka.

According to what the families told this paper, treatment costs range from Tk 20,000 to Tk 40,000 at government hospitals. For those needing ICU support at private hospitals, the cost is in lakhs.

The burden is twofold for low-income families. They are not only spending heavily on treatment but also failing to earn while caring for sick children.

Tamzid developed a fever on May 1, only days after recovering from pneumonia and a three-day stay at Madaripur Sadar Hospital. When his condition worsened the next day, he was readmitted.

The family later consulted a doctor acquaintance and rushed him to a private hospital in Khulna, but doctors there refused admission, saying his condition was too critical. Desperate, the family travelled to Dhaka and finally secured a bed at the DNCC hospital on May 6.

“I had to pay Tk 16,500 for the ambulance alone,” Titu said, adding that he had already spent around Tk 14,000 during the two hospital stays in Madaripur.

The DNCC hospital, which was treating 443 measles patients yesterday, including around 100 children in Tamzid’s ward, supplies most medicines. But other expenses keep mounting. Titu estimates the family spent another Tk 6,000 on food, transport, and supplementary medicines in Dhaka.

“In the last month, I could not run my auto-van as I was busy taking my child from one hospital to another,” he said.

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