Sustainable Development Goals 3 and target 8 talks about achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.
And the achievement of this target hinges on quality accessible Primary Health Care (PHC) is the foundation of Universal Health Care as it is a whole of society approach to health care and wellbeing centred on the needs of individuals and societies.
In view of this, the theme for observing the 2019 World Health Day is “Universal Health Coverage (UHC), with a focus on the critical role of Primary Healthcare.
The day is observed yearly on April 7 and at the commemoration event Monday, April 8, Deputy Minister of Health, Alexander Kojo Kom Abban who spoke on behalf of the sector minister explained that Ghana has identified Primary Health Care as one of the key strategies in implementing the roadmap for UHC in Ghana.
Therefore, there is a strong system for monitoring and evaluation to ensure accountability and participation.
The process for developing UHC roadmap has begun and will be an integral part of Ghana’s conversation at this year’s Health Summit which comes off 15th and 16th of April, he added.
“In deed, Primary Health Care is the pillar for building a resilient Health System”.
According to him, achieving UHC requires political decisions that go beyond the health sector since it is akey to reduce poverty, promote equity and social cohesion.
Some of the key strategies under the implementation of UHC roadmap are: increasing NHIS enrollment and keeping members active, also make the CHIPS fully functional throughout the country as well as increasing service providers’ capacitates and availability at all levels with priority at the sub-district level.
Meanwhile, World Health Organization Country Representative, Dr. Owen Kaluwa commended Ghana to be part of countries making progress towards attainment of Universal Health Coverage.
Millions of people are said to have no access tom health care, and that about 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty each year because of out of pocket spending on health.
Therefore we must work to ensure availability, accessibility, affordability and quality of services.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Patrick Ofoe Nudzi