Islamabad (Web Desk): The International Universal Health Coverage Day is being observed today (Thursday) across the globe including Pakistan.
This year theme of the Day is "Health: It's on the government".
The day aims to highlight the importance of building robust health systems and ensuring universal access to healthcare for all.
The day was first launched on December 12, 2012, when the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously supported the resolution to make UHC a priority of countries as integral and necessary for the fulfilment of human rights and international development.
In 2014, it was proclaimed as UHC Day by the Universal Health Coverage Coalition. Thus, UNGA declared December 12 International Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day in 2017.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Universal Health Coverage Day 2024 focuses on the role of financial protection in accelerating progress towards UHC. Financial protection ensures that people don’t fall into poverty because of having to pay out-of-pocket for health costs.
Over the last 20 years, financial protection has progressively deteriorated, with 2 billion people experiencing financial hardship and 1.3 billion people pushed into poverty due to health spending.
This means that mothers may miss out on the life-saving intervention they need for themselves or their children, people are not diagnosed and treated for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) on time, with delays in early treatment leading to severe, untreatable or life-threatening illnesses.
Healthier populations build communities that are more resilient, productive, peaceful and prosperous. Health for all is a pre-requisite to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
In spite of numerous high-level political commitments to achieve UHC by 2030, over half of the world’s population still has no access to essential health services.
UHC will remain elusive until governments adequately invest in protecting people – particularly the most vulnerable among us – from impoverishing health spending.
On this UHC Day, WHO has called for urgent action to put financial protection measures in place.
