International Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day is observed globally on 12 December every year. The theme for year 2022, is “Build the world we want: A healthy future for all”.
Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a powerful concept that offers the promise for better health of people by ensuring quality health services, and financial risk protection by enabling access to affordable health services, and at the core, the promise of social justice by leaving “NO One Behind”.
Universal Health Coverage is fundamental to achieving Sustainable Development Goals for Health. WHO’s global targets for a billion more people benefitting from universal health coverage, a billion more people enjoying better health and well-being, and a billion more people better protected from health emergencies can better be achieved through stronger health systems.
Currently, at least half of the people in the world do not receive the health services they need, and unfortunately, 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty each year because of out-of-pocket spending on health.
In response, UN members, including Bangladesh, committed to achieving universal health coverage as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. World leaders reinforced their commitment by endorsing the Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) at a United Nations high-level meeting in September 2019, making the first such commitment of its kind. The Declaration stresses the need for a Whole-of-Government (WOG) and Whole-of-Society (WOS) approach to fulfil the UHC vision, demanding commitments, actions, and investments in sectors beyond the boundary of the health sector.
The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered the underlying links between UHC and health security. The experiences of response to the COVID-19 pandemic confirmed that primary health care is the most effective and sustainable mechanism for achieving UHC.
Lessons learned indicate the need for a resilient and people centric-integrated health system supported by sufficient and sustainable funding, a competent health workforce, and enabling legislative and regulatory frameworks. Further, multi-sectoral approaches for engaging the whole of society are crucial to solve the inequalities that have deep roots in the cultural and socio-economic context.
On this special day, I would like to encourage the policymakers, leaders, development partners, and civil society to strengthen the present social, economic, political, and health system capacity; and to prepare a better future for healthier population under the theme ‘Build the world we want: A Healthy Future for All’.