ABOUT A billion people cannot afford health services, and paying for healthcare pushes about 100 million people a year into poverty, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday.
In a global report on financing health systems, the United Nations health body said all countries, rich and poor, could do more towards offering universal health coverage. It urged them to think about ways of increasing efficiency and using new taxes and innovative fundraising measures to boost access to healthcare.
The World Health Report 2010lays out steps countries can take to raise more funds and reduce financial barriers to obtaining healthcare, and to make health services more efficient.
The report suggested governments look at diversifying sources of revenue by introducing levies such as “sin” taxes on products like tobacco and alcohol, currency transaction taxes, and national “solidarity” taxes on certain sectors.
WHO director general Margaret Chan wrote in a foreword to the report that “no one in need of healthcare, whether curative or preventive, should risk financial ruin as a result”.
“As the world grapples with economic slowdown, globalisation of diseases . . . and growing demands for chronic care . . . the need for universal health coverage, and a strategy for financing it, has never been greater,” the report said. “There is no magic bullet to achieving universal access. Nevertheless, a wide range of experiences from around the world suggests that countries can move forward faster.”
The WHO said that, typically, 20-40 per cent of health spending was wasted, often through spending on expensive but unnecessary drugs, hospital-related inefficiency and poor use of skilled professionals’ time. – Reuters