(UNI) Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day, commemorated each December 12, is the anniversary of the first unanimous United Nations resolution calling for countries to provide affordable, quality health care to every person, everywhere.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that all UN Member States have agreed to try to achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2030. This includes financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.
To mark this day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted, “Today is Universal Health Coverage Day. In #Bangla, healthcare is free at govt hospitals and health centres. We have also set up fair-price medicine shops and diagnostic centres, ICCUs, HDUs, CCUs, mother & child hubs and more. We are committed to the welfare of all.”
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least half of the world’s populations still do not have full coverage of essential health services. For World Health Day 2018, WHO calls on world leaders to take concrete steps
to move towards universal health coverage (UHC). This means ensuring that everyone, everywhere can access quality health services without facing financial hardship, as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals all countries agreed in 2015.
Where health systems fail to provide adequate financial protection, people are forced to choose between health care and other basic needs. This undermines access to services, lowers health status, deepens poverty and exacerbates inequalities.
UHC means that all individuals and communities receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship. It includes the full spectrum of essential, quality health services, from health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation,
and palliative care.
UHC enables everyone to access the services that address the most significant causes of disease and death, and ensures that the quality of those services is good enough to improve the health of the people who receive them.
