FORUM: "Health: it's on the government!" International Universal Health Coverage Day 2024. The high cost of health services is the primary reason people miss out on essential health care. These costs often force families to choose between paying for medicines or a visit to the doctor and other necessities, such as food, housing and education. Health costs and illness should never push people into poverty. Investing in universal health coverage and financial protection not only enhances health and well-being but also fosters greater equity and social cohesion.When populations are healthy, communities and economies prosper. That is why we call on decision makers around the world to protect people from financial hardship when accessing health services. It is the responsibility of governments to ensure that healthcare is always affordable or free, particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable among us. Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day 2024 will focus on the role of financial protection in accelerating progress towards UHC. Financial protection ensures that people don’t fall into poverty because of having to pay out-of-pocket for health costs. Over the last 20 years, financial protection has progressively deteriorated, with 2 billion people experiencing financial hardship and 1.3 billion people pushed into poverty due to health spending. This means that mothers may miss out on the life-saving intervention they need for themselves or their children, people are not diagnosed and treated for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) on time, with delays in early treatment leading to severe, untreatable or life-threatening illnesses. Healthier populations build communities that are more resilient, productive, peaceful and prosperous. Health for all is a pre-requisite to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). In spite of numerous high-level political commitments to achieve UHC by 2030, over half of the world’s population still has no access to essential health services. UHC will remain elusive until governments adequately invest in protecting people – particularly the most vulnerable among us – from impoverishing health spending. This UHC Day, WHO calls for urgent action to put financial protection measures in place. Join us in starting discussions and taking action to make financial protection and #HealthForAll a reality. This year, UHC Day presents an opportunity to revitalize commitments towards accelerating UHC. Follow the conversations with the hashtags: #Timeforaction, #Healthexpenditure, #InvestinHealth, #healthForAll, #UHC, #12December, #UHCday, #UniversalHealthCoverage.
EVENTS: On December 12th, the World Health Assembly (WHA), the Regional offices of the World Health Organization and the Global Health Council with host an event to mark the International Universal Health Coverage Day 2024 visible by the people living in the Latin America region, in the South-East Asia Region, in the European Region, in the African Region and in the Western Pacific Region. See what campaigners are doing around the world and get your event featured on the UHC Day global heatmap by filling this form.
WEBINARS: On Thursday, December 12th, the WHO and its 6 regional offices will mark Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day with a series of events, which are open to the public through the live stream links below. These events will recognize and celebrate bold actions towards UHC reforms made by political leaders and decision-makers throughout 2024. Accelerating progress towards UHC by 2030 is achievable but requires reducing financial barriers in accessing health services and protecting people from financial hardship. Learn how WHO is working with countries to make this happen. Stay tuned!
On December 12th 2024, from 18:00 – 20:00 pm. CET in the Americas regions from the PAHO/WHO will held a virtual event to mark the day. Watch the virtual event!
On December 12th, 2024, from 07:30 – 09:30 am CET in the Asia-Pacific regions from the WHO WPRO will held a virtual event to mark the day. Watch the virtual event!
On December 12th, 2024, from 12:30 – 14:30 pm CET in the African, Eastern Mediterranean and European regions from the WHO EMRO will held a virtual event to mark the day. Watch the virtual event!
PUBLICATIONS: Launch of the Global Health Expenditure Report 2024, on December 12th during the Universal Health Coverage Day 2024.
The world is off track to make significant progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) (SDG target 3.8) by 2030 as improvements to health services coverage have stagnated since 2015, and the proportion of the population that faced catastrophic levels of out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending has increased. Read the following suggested reports:
ACTIONS: This Universal Health Coverage Day 2024 on December 12h, let's
- Reflect on financial hardship.
- Increase Investments in universal health, improve equity and social cohesion.
- Improve health and well-being in workplaces by increasing workforce participation and productivity.
- Strengthen the resilience of individuals, families, and communities.
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