E-DRUG: Health funding essential for poverty reduction
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Dear All,
FYI
Health funding essential for poverty reduction
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/459/695193
By Rebecca Pointer
POOR people are more vulnerable to ill-health, due to being malnourished, having poor access to clean water and sanitation, and living in poor quality housing. In many African countries the already impoverished sick people have to find a way to pay for user fees and medicine.
According to Charlotte Zikusooka of HealthNet Consult: 'Uganda's health sector is under-funded, relying heavily on private sources of financing, especially out-of-pocket spending.' In Uganda, even after user fees in public hospitals were scrapped in March 2001, more than 30% of health financing comes from people's own back pockets.
Medicine is frequently not available in the public health sector, which according to Denis Kibira of the Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development, is compounded with a wide variation in medicine prices. This renders essential medicines unaffordable to the poor.
In Abuja in 2001, African governments committed to spending 15% of annual government budgets on the health sector. But Uganda has not reached this target. In 2006/7 the Government spent only 9.6% of its total budget on health.
Although public spending on health has increased from about $8 (sh16,000) per person in 2001 to $11 (sh22,000) per person in 2007, the Government has still not reached its own target of $28 (sh56,000) per person needed to cover the Uganda National Minimum Healthcare Package. Neither has it come close to meeting the $40(sh80,000) per person recommended by the World Health Organisation as minimum needed to fund health care in developing countries.
Due to insufficient funding, the package of health services at public health facilities is inadequate to meet people’s healthcare needs.
There have been some positive developments over the last eight years, with scrapping of user fees in public facilities, more public money going directly to district health services, and more public money allocated to areas with the poorest health outcomes. The Government is also considering a Social Health Insurance scheme to increase health financing.
Unless the Government greatly increases the budget for the health sector, individuals and communities will continue to be made poorer by ill health and will continue to have inadequate access to healthcare services.
A regional conference covering countries in east and southern Africa on reclaiming the resources for health will take place in Munyonyo from September 23 to 25. The conference will discuss the causes and responses to inequalities in health in the region, including some of these health financing issues that affect all countries in east and southern Africa.
Delegates to the conference include MPs, policy makers, researchers and civil society. The Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa, the host of the conference, believes that African countries do have the knowledge, ability and experience to overcome persistent inequalities in health. One measure already raised is for governments in east and southern Africa to increase their health budgets to at least meet the 15% of total government spending target they set in Abuja in 2001.
While this still may not raise enough money to provide the basic package of healthcare set by the Government policy in Uganda, it is an important sign of increased priority for health. It provides ways for the public sector to lead and draw international and private resources to these national priorities.
Professor Di McIntyre of the University of Cape Town, South Africa says: 'Health systems are critical to promote health and reduce inequalities in health, but can only do so if they are adequately and fairly financed through progressive taxes and other public funding such as social health insurance, and if resources are allocated in line with health needs.'
'No one should die because they cannot afford healthcare, and no one should be made poorer because they get sick.'
The writer is a consultant for the Regional Network for Equity in Health in East and Southern Africa.
Mulumba, Moses
Health and Human Rights Lawyer
mulumba_mos@yahoo.co.uk
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