“Around 150 million people are suffering from the hardships presented by the collapse of financial systems. And 100 million people have actually been pushed under the poverty line because of the need to use and pay for health services,” said David Evans, director of health systems financing at WHO.
The ambition of universal health coverage requires all people to have access to needed health services. These health services include prevention, health promotion, treatment and rehabilitation without the risk of financial demands. However, these aspirations are non-existent nowadays. Few people have access to treatments because of financial constraints. Poor have empty pockets.
According to Evans that there are three key factors that influence a country’s capacity to provide the financial resources needed to move towards universal health coverage. These factors are affordability, level of political and public commitment to health, and prevailing attitudes such as concepts towards solidarity to improve healthcare available to people. However, it is a reality that when our pockets are empty one can’t afford medical check-ups, treatments and medicines.
The report of Evans proposes solutions that draw a country to come up with best options that countries can consider to address their own specific health financial problem needs.
The proposed solutions are threefold and these include the continual need to search for sufficient funds for health, avoiding financial barriers to healthcare access and inequity in use of resources.
The solutions are relevant to countries in all income levels and offer a framework for how the international community can better help low-income countries develop their own heath financial systems and institutions.
“It’s not possible to get universal health coverage tomorrow but we will get there quicker if we focus on these things,” said Evans and it is definitely true for that.