Riyaz Patel
Some five billion people risk missing out on primary health care by 2030 unless countries demonstrate the political will to close glaring gaps in health coverage, a new report said Sunday, as the UN prepares to host a landmark summit to speed up progress on universal health care (UHC).
The study, “Primary Health Care on the Road to Universal Health Coverage,” estimates that around 60 million lives could be saved by increasing annual spending on primary health care in low and middle-income countries by some $200 billion per year.
Whilst overall coverage has increased steadily since 2000, the UHC report shows big health service gaps in the poorest countries, especially those those plagued by conflict.
Rural areas tend to suffer from lower coverage , due to a lack of infrastructure, shortage of health workers, and poor-quality care.
“If we are really serious about achieving universal health coverage and improving people’s lives, we must get serious about primary health care.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General
South Africa is currently in the process of laying the groundwork to roll out its National Health Insurance (NHI) plan, which President Cyril Ramaphosa said will be the catalyst to achieve free medical care and hospitalisation for all.
“We are one of the countries with the highest inequality, and this requires a policy change.”
The president pointed out that South Africa has enough resources “to give every man, woman and child health care, but we refuse because we want to promote interests of a few to the detriment of the rest.”
“That means providing essential health services like immunization, antenatal care, healthy lifestyle advice as close to home as possible, and making sure people do not have to pay for this care out of their own pockets,” said WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus.
The report was published ahead of the first-ever high-level summit on universal health coverage (UHC), at UN headquarters in New York, Monday, one of five official summits taking place during the High-Level Week marking the opening of the new General Assembly session.
The UN is billing the event as the most significant political meeting ever to be held on the issue, with senior representatives from a wide range of relevant organizations – including Heads of State and Government, parliamentarians, senior UN officials, members of civil society, business leaders, and academics – expected to attend.
Health and sustainable development
The World Health Organization (WHO), which believes that health is essential for sustainable development, has worked with the Kenyan Government on the launch of pilot UHC programmes in a number of Kenyan counties, selected because it has a high prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases, high population density, and high maternal mortality.
The aim of the pilot programmes is to improve health care by abolishing fees at local health care facilities, and introducing a social health insurance scheme.
Progress on universal health coverage, like climate action, is seen as one of the key elements in ensuring that the 2030 Agenda, the UN’s blueprint for a better future, is realised.
Sustainable Development Goal 3 calls on all international role players to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages,” and achieving UHC is one of the targets the nations of the world set, when adopting the Goals in 2015, the UN said.
