Quality healthcare for everyone, everywhere
December 12 is celebrated annually as the Universal Health Coverage Day (UHCD) by the United Nations to commemorate the unanimous endorsement of the UHC in 2012. Since 2017, December 12 has been proclaimed by the UN as International Universal Health Coverage Day (UHC).
The basic purpose of the observance of the day is to raise awareness about the need for strong health systems and Universal Health Coverage. The theme for the year 2024, ‘Health: It’s on the Government’ underscores the accountability and commitment of any government in ensuring that everyone has access to quality healthcare and global health equity.
Its annual observance underscores access to health services when and where required without financial hardships.
Improving health and wellbeing, increasing workforce participation and productivity, enhancing equity and social cohesion besides building resilience in individuals, families and communities; have been identified as strategic steps to achieve the aim of the UHC.
Another important goal for achieving UHC is the provision of adequate maternal and newborn healthcare in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs), a goal that entails deploying significant numbers of skilled healthcare workers by 2030.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) promotes the day and leads celebrations in various regions including Asia-Pacific Region, African, Eastern Mediterranean and European regions.
Though the observance of UHC has remained significant, the Covid pandemic further raised the importance as the year saw exponential increase in the number of people facing financial hardships.
Centenary periodicity in reoccurrence of epidemics during the past 400 years further necessitated the accountability of national governments for assured availability of healthcare facilities to all citizens.
It was observed that the world was jolted by a pandemic once in every 100 years — the plague of 1720 followed by cholera in 1820, Spanish flu in 1920 and finally the coronavirus in 2020.
The WHO, which has been monitoring the progress towards UHC through essential service coverage and financial protection from large household expenditure on health or catastrophic health expenditure; observed that in 2019, out of pocket health spending had dragged 344 million people further into extreme poverty and 1.3 billion into relative poverty across the world. In total, the year 2019 saw 2 billion people facing financial hardship.
Though the UHC is a global mission to provide quality healthcare services to all without financial hardships, countries such as India need preemptive planning to cover the poorest among the poor.
Health insurance plays a significant role in UHC in India by providing financial coverage for outpatient care and other health services. The nation initiated UHC with the Ayushman Bharat Scheme in 2018.
The Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) has emerged as the world’s largest publicly funded assurance programme. Presently, all senior citizens aged 70 and above are eligible to receive health coverage irrespective of their socio-economic status.
The large network of public sector insurance companies transacting health insurance business has further increased the health coverage at affordable costs to beneficiary persons.
Health issues can also be managed at the primary-care level through early detection of diseases. It results in better prognosis and cost savings, thus saving thousands of middle-class families from financial crisis. Health packages according to needs of the people and efficient utilisation of resources can further help the government to cover the entire population.
Lack of quality human resources, suboptimal management of trauma and chronic diseases, the inaccessibility of necessary health services due to financial constraints and unequal accessibility of healthcare were identified as critical barriers to achieving UHC in some developing and underdeveloped countries.
In other nations, despite the efforts to introduce social health insurance schemes and enhance access to basic health services in the population, the unfulfilled healthcare needs remain a critical challenge.
Recent studies have revealed that the high cost of health services is the core reason behind larger populations missing out on essential healthcare. The governments are expected not to allow health costs and illness to push people into poverty. Investing in universal health coverage and financial protection fosters greater equity and social cohesion besides enhancing health and wellbeing.
