Health needs plunge 100 million into poverty

More than 100 million people are plunged into poverty every year by illness or "catastrophic" medical bills, the World Health Organisation said on Monday as it launched a global drive for universal health care.

"No one in need of health care should have to risk financial ruin as a result," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said.

The agency's annual report, devoted this year to financing health systems, underlined that the need for universal health coverage "has never been greater" with the economic slowdown, globalisation of disease and ageing populations that need more care for chronic conditions.

Since 2005, the WHO's 192 member states have decreed that everyone should have access to health services and no one should suffer financial hardship as a result.

"On both counts the world is a long way from universal coverage," the report said. The UN health agency found that in countries that depend heavily on people paying for their services when they seek care "health bills push 100 million people into poverty each year" as many suffer "catastrophic costs."

The most successful health care systems in Europe, Japan, Chile, Mexico Rwanda and Thailand were based on pooled resources, helping to spread the financing burden, it added. The report highlighted three "fundamental, interrelated" problems that stopped countries moving closer to universal coverage.

They included an overreliance on such direct payments, the unavailability of the full range of care and treatment, and the "inefficient and inequitable use" of resources.

"At a conservative estimate, 20 to 40 percent of health resources are being wasted," the report said.

Geneva, Monday, AFP