What is Universal Health Coverage (UHC)?
Universal Health Coverage (UHC) means “everyone can receive basic health care and health service”.
The key points of UHC are “Availability” and “Affordability“.
– Health care service should be available whenever people need (=Availability)
– The medical cost should be affordable (=Affordability)
If basic health care is very expensive, many people cannot pay.
That situation is not Universal Health Coverage.
How does UHC progress in the world?
UHC is scored by 14 indicators, with a range from 0 to 100.
In the below world map, the country with the dense blue has the high score, which means they are in a better condition regarding UHC.
Countries in North America, Europe, East Asia, and Oceania are shown with the dense blue.
In the country with the light blue, some people are still struggling to receive basic health care. I didn’t know that many countries still have problem of health care service.
Let’s find a country with the most dense blue!
How can we make the system “everyone can access basic health care”?
You might wonder how to make the system “everyone can access basic health care”.
There are several key points on it. First, let’s see the flow of receiving health care when you get sick.
To make this flow smooth, many conditions are required as below.
In addition, no language barrier and no discrimination by social status are also elements that we should not forget.
It is important to overcome language barriers because medical staff must communicate well with patients to provide appropriate medical services.
Furthermore, it should be respected that there are no restrictions to medical access based on social status such as gender.
All of these factors need to be carried out to achieve “everyone can access basic health care”.
Next, we are going to see more details about one of the key factors “the medical cost should be affordable”, using an example of the Japanese health insurance system (see ‘Everyone can access health care (2)’).
I have never had a problem receiving medication. But I did not know such many conditions were required to make it all smooth.
References
– World Health Organization. Universal Health Coverage. https://www.who.int/health-topics/universal-health-coverage#tab=tab_1
– World Health Organization 2023 data.who.int, UHC service coverage index [Indicator]. https://data.who.int/indicators/i/9A706FD (Accessed on 19 October 2023)
