Universal Health Coverage - how are we doing?

they say the journey matters at least as much as the destination does this apply to universal health coverage come onboard and find out for the launch of the UHC global monitoring report 2019 four years ago at the United Nations world leaders committed to the Sustainable Development Goals the SDGs they pledged to advance their populations economic social and human development and health SDG three targets

health it aims at enabling everyone to access the care they need whenever they need it wherever they are this is what we call universal health coverage and UHC means leaving no one behind to progress to us you hae see it is crucial to set the course to avoid getting lost and to check we're going in the right direction the latest you hate the global monitoring report does just that it is a precise navigation instrument to ensure

the cost is right so how we doing the good news is service coverage improved from 2000 to 2017 thanks largely to interventions targeting infectious diseases and maternal and child care but globally and for many countries the pace of progress has slowed since 2010 and the poorest and most fragile countries still lag behind put bluntly progress is too slow and we need to accelerate to reach the SDG target by 2030 to correct

the course we need to see additional investments in primary health care as the main channel to deliver UHC if progress is not at least doubled people will continue to miss out on the health services they need by 2030 how are we doing on out-of-pocket spending well the gains in service coverage have come at a major cost to individuals and their families millions of people are still spending too much of the household

budget on health and are falling into poverty as a result the targets can be achieved mainly through increased and more efficient use of domestic funding as well as better targeted aid whenever necessary to use pH C as a catalytic investment for UHC requires an additional investment of 200 billion u.s. dollars per year and will save 60 million lives how can we address these daunting challenges we need to invest in health systems another consideration to

keep in mind gender inequality is present across the health sector risks are different and so is care seeking behavior besides women who are usually the primary caregivers make up 70% of health and social workers but are paid less than men and a fewer leadership roles in health while in some areas the pod seems clear in other areas the horizon still looks distant and blurry it is still possible to achieve UHC by 2030 but will require accelerated

efforts all hands on deck all countries can kick-start their efforts with an immediate 1% allocation of GDP to primary health care more than ever the leadership of policymakers is necessary as after all UHC is a matter of political choice there is not much time for such an arduous journey every step counts together let us make UHC a reality