Diarrhoea, a water-borne communicable disease continues tobe a major public health problem of greater concern in Bangladeshdue to which disease alone approximately 260,000 children dieevery year. Information on the costs incurred by the providersand consumers for the management of diarrhoeal cases is vital inunderstanding and improving the effectiveness of the programme. Costs incurred by the people in receiving the treatment fordiarrhoeal disease at Narayanganj District Hospital in Bangladeshwere estimated using a structured questionnarie. A total of 20cases from urban and 80 cases from rural areas were selected andinterviewed for this purpose. The different cost componentsidentified from the patient perspective include registration fee,bed charges, medical expenses, food cost for the patients andparents, transport cost and opportunity cost due to work loss. The cost incurred by the people from rural areas inreceiving the treatment for diarrhoeal disease was estimated tothe Taka 1,989.59 which was significantly (t=3.39

p= less than0.05) higher than that incurred by the urban patients (Taka1,465.40). The major cost component for the rural patient wasfound to be the opportunity cost due to wage lost (28.63 %) whileit was the food cost (22.29 %) for the urban patients. The perceived satisfaction among the respondents on thehealth services was also analyzed by using structuredquestionnaire. Rating scale was given and, based on this, anindex was derived to compare across service points between ruraland urban. The level of satisfaction expressed by the ruralpeople was significantly higher at District Hospital (p = lessthan 0.05) when compared with the Health complexes and Healthcentres. Main causes of non-using local health facilities werereported to be low medical care, minimum and inadequateinvestigation facilities as well as doctors' absenteeism. Improving health facilities at peripheral level is worthconsidering as higher cost was incurred by the patients who wereforced to seek care at District hospitals. This was evident fromthe present study on the patients' cost in receiving health carefor diarrhoeal management. This will benefit the rural communityby the way of reducing the cost while receiving care at theirconvenient service points.