On the global health systems landscape, the term “universal health coverage - UHC” has gained prominence in the last 3-5 years – and rightly so; in every nation, everyone (citizen or resident) should have access to health care regardless of one’s ability to pay. The Executive Board of the WHO, reporting to the 66thWorld Health Assembly held recently in Geneva, noted that UHC is “…increasingly seen as being critical to delivering better health…” and proposed that member nations “…modify their health financing systems in the search for universal health coverage…”. The need for the expansion of access to health care, particularly for the world’s poorest people, was acknowledged by all 189 UN member countries in September 2000 with the declaration of eight Millennium Development Goals to improve economic and social conditions by 2015. In fact, three of these goals relate directly to health (maternal health; child health; HIV, TB and Malaria) and two others have components that relate to health (environmental sustainability and poverty).In a response, African leaders meeting in Abuja, Nigeria a year after the declaration of the MGDs, moved their commitments further by pledging to set aside at least 15% of their annual national budgets for the health sector.Twelve years on, only seven African countries have been reported to have achieved the 15% target of the Abuja Declaration: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia. Further, with respect to meeting the 2015 MDG targets, only eight countries are on track: Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Eritrea, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, and Tunisia. Ghana has used various mechanisms of financing health care since independence in 1957. During the period immediately post-independence, health care was financed through tax – the state providing the resources. With time, as the burden on the state grew, user fees were introduced – where individuals and households had to finance their health care out-of-pocket. The period of the Structural Adjustment Programmes saw significant increases in user fees (commonly known as “cash and carry”) as the state’s role in social programme was reduced. The often harsh terms of the era and the attending negative impact it had on especially poor people led to the emergence of community-based health financing schemes. These schemes evolvedas communities sought to mobilize themselves to help reduce the financial risk that illness brought on people. To a large extent, it is the success of the community initiatives that laid the foundation for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which was introduced in 2003 through the National Health Insurance Act, 2003 (Act 650) of the Parliament of Ghana and became fully operational in 2005.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 01:01:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015