The seventy-third session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for the Western Pacific will discuss major health issues in the Region, including reaching the unreached, mental health, primary health care, cervical cancer and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This story is part of a series examining how each health topic affects people in the Region.
Prok Sok Voeun could not be more grateful for her local health centre and a government social security scheme.
“If I hadn’t had access to a local health centre at the start of my illness, I would have died, as I wouldn’t have been diagnosed. The tumours would have developed into cancer,” said Sok Voeun, who is a team leader at a garment factory outside of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
“I had been seeing a doctor at the local health centre for some time. After a while, the prescribed medicines no longer worked and the doctor advised me to see a gynaecologist,” she explained. “I learnt that I had tumours and the condition was severe.
“I was in constant pain.”
Sok Voeun worried about her health and how she would provide for her two sons, the younger one still at school.
“I had to take a six-month break from work. This was an incredibly stressful time because I was sick, I had no money and I had to cover rent for our home.”
One bright spot was easy access, day or night, to doctors and nurses at Sok Voeun’s local health centre, where she went to have her surgery wound cleaned and receive prescribed medicines.
“Having a health centre so close to my house is convenient, and I can visit the centre any time I feel ill. It would have been difficult for me to travel so far to the hospital while recovering from my illness.
“I am happy with the support I received. They gave me good advice. They never treated me unkindly. They made me feel like I was going to receive excellent care whenever I went there.”
Staff at the primary health-care centre also helped Sok Voeun fill in forms to access her entitlements under the country’s workplace health insurance scheme, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).
Now, she urges other Cambodians to trust and use the fund to benefit from equitable access to high-quality care: “I’d like to see people all over the country using their NSSF card to gain access to the same health services as wealthier people.”
Watch Sok Voeun share her health story.
Primary health care is a priority for the WHO in the Western Pacific and essential for global progress on universal health coverage. It is also a priority theme this year for the Regional Committee, which will the Regional Framework on the Future of Primary Health Care in the Western Pacific.
Access to quality primary health care will be increasingly important in the Western Pacific Region, where cancer and other NCDs cause four out of five deaths. Health needs are predicted to rise, as the number of people aged 60 and older in the Region is expected to double by 2050.
At present, one in five people in the Region are being pushed into poverty due to health expenses. Meanwhile, increased health awareness and low trust in health systems are changing how people interact with health services.
A people-centred approach to primary health care, including care delivered closer to communities, is essential to health system transformation for the future.
The draft Regional Framework on the Future of Primary Health Care in the Western Pacific outlines five strategic actions that Member States can consider and adapt to their contexts to achieve comprehensive, continuous and high-quality primary health care. They are to: build appropriate models of service delivery that are tailored to local contexts; enable individuals and communities to contribute to planning, decision-making and policy direction; build a diverse primary health-care workforce and provider base that is closely aligned with the needs of communities; ensure health financing reduces the financial pressure on the population; and create an environment to drive and guide action on primary health-care reform by revising legal, policy and regulatory frameworks.
WHO is working with Member States to create the primary health care for the future, because all people should get the best care, when they need it and in their community.