Earlier this week, world leaders adopted a high-level United Nations Political Declaration on universal health coverage (UHC). The UHC is being touted as the most comprehensive set of health commitments ever adopted at this level geared towards improving the health of citizens all over the word.
This declaration comes the day after the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other health partners restated the need to double health coverage between now and 2030. This commitment is therefore viewed as a bold step by governments and policymakers in their efforts towards ensuring that citizens lead healthier and happier lives.
In adopting the declaration, UN Member States have committed to advance towards UHC by investing in four major areas around primary health care. These include mechanisms to ensure no one suffers financial hardship because they have had to pay for healthcare out of their own pockets and implementing high-impact health interventions to combat diseases and protect women’s and children’s health. In addition, countries are required to strengthen health workforce and infrastructure and reinforce governance capacity. It is expected that countries will then report back on their progress to the UN General Assembly in 2023.
Of course, the challenge now for governments would be to turn these commitments into concrete actions which would produce results that would make a difference in terms of improving the health of people everywhere.
Delivering adequate healthcare has always been a challenge for developing countries with limited resources and underdeveloped systems. The ‘Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Health Price Tag’, published some time ago in The Lancet Global Health, had provided some useful information in relation to costs and benefits of progressively expanding health services in order to reach 16 SDG health targets in 67 low— and middle—income countries that account for 75% of the world’s population. The ‘SDG Health Price Tag’ does not prescribe what countries should spend on health, but is intended as a tool to inform further research.
The SDGs were adopted by the Member States of the United Nations in 2015 as the world’s to-do list for the next 15 years. They comprise 17 ambitious, interlinked goals and 169 targets for a healthier, safer and fairer world by 2030. While the SDGs are for all countries, the ‘SDG Health Price Tag’ focused on 67 low- and middle-income countries that face the greatest challenges in terms of expanding health services.
According to the report, investments to expand services towards universal health coverage and the other SDG health targets could prevent 97 million premature deaths globally between now and 2030, and add as much as 8.4 years of life expectancy in some countries.
The report explains that the ‘SDG Health Price Tag’ models two scenarios: an “ambitious” scenario in which investments are sufficient for countries to attain the health targets in the SDGs by 2030, and a “progress” scenario in which countries get two thirds or more of the way to the targets.
Certainly, there is need for developing countries, such as Guyana, to continue making stronger efforts to revise financing at national levels, so that health could be positioned as a top priority for funding. For example, there is need for targeted allocation of resources to address the growing shortage of health workers. Hospitals and health centres across Guyana need to be equipped with adequate nurses, doctors and other health experts to deal with health problems that citizens face daily.
Further, creating awareness with regard to social determinants of health, promoting health at all levels of the community; ensuring that healthy public policies are in place and developing and implementing innovative approaches that work can go a far way in achieving health targets.
That said, achieving universal health coverage and the other health targets requires not only funding but political will. As stated by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, UHC is ultimately a political choice. It is the responsibility of every country and national governments to pursue it.
