World Bank to back health-for-all plan

The World Bank President Jim Yong Kim on Tuesday said universal health coverage could help achieve a goal of ending ‘absolute poverty by 2030’ and that the global lender would help countries to provide the coverage.

“Every country in the world can improve the performance of its health system in the three dimensions of universal coverage: access, quality, and affordability,” he said while addressing World Health Organisation’s key annual meeting, World Health Assembly, in Geneva.

He said priorities, strategies and implementation plans would “differ greatly from one country to another”.

But in all cases, he said “countries need to tie their plans to tough, relevant metrics. And international partners must be ready to support you”.

He, however, cautioned all to prevent ‘universal coverage’ from ending up “as a toothless slogan’ that doesn’t challenge us, force us to change, force us to get better every day”.

The United Nations General Assembly last year adopted a resolution on affordable universal health care, urging countries to develop financing systems that avoid payment at the point-of-services.

“Anyone who has provided health care to poor people knows that even tiny out-of-pocket charges can drastically reduce their use of needed services.”

“This is both unjust and unnecessary,” he said and that “countries can replace point-of-service fees with a variety of forms of sustainable financing that don’t risk putting poor people in this potentially fatal bind”.

He said health spending forces about 100 million people into extreme poverty every year and inflicts severe financial hardship on a further 150 million.

Kim, a physician by training, is also a former director of WHO. He took over the charge of the global lender in July last year and set a target last month to cut extreme poverty –living on less than $1.25 a day –to less than 3 percent by 2030 from 21 percent in 2010.

To end poverty and boost shared prosperity, Kim on Tuesday said countries need robust, inclusive economic growth.

“And to drive growth, they need to build human capital through investments in health, education and social protection for all their citizens”.

“Now is the time to act,” he said, “we must be the generation that delivers universal health coverage”.

Oxfam International lauded his call. Its Senior Health Policy Advisor Dr Mohga Kamal Yanni said “The World Bank is becoming a major champion on Universal Health Coverage and we applaud President Kim's leadership on this issue”.

In its website post Oxfam said, “Universal coverage cannot happen without major, scaled up public investments in health, the Bank must now change the way it works to help countries achieve this.

“By working with the World Health Organisation, the Bank can support countries to ensure that every citizen gets access to the healthcare they need”.

The Oxfam also welcomed the World Bank’s support for countries to remove user fees which it said ‘a major financial barrier’ in achieving Universal Health Coverage, but said “fees must not be replaced by insurance”.