At a crossroads: How can Nepal enhance its community health care system to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3 and universal health coverage?

Universal and affordable health care: how can we achieve it?

I was watching a live TV broadcast of the US House of Representatives voting for the health care reform bill (Affordable Health Care for America Act) in a hotel room on November 7th when I was visiting Philadel-phia to participate in the annual meeting of the Ameri-can Public Health Association. The voting continued, despite it being late on a Saturday night. When the House passed the bill at a...

Universal health coverage and the health Sustainable Development Goal: achievements and challenges for Sri Lanka.

With state-funded health care that is free at the point of delivery, a sound primary health-care policy and widespread health-care services, Sri Lanka seems a good example of universal health coverage. Yet, health transition and disparities in provision and financing threaten this situation. Sri Lanka did well on the Millennium Development Goal health indicators, but the Sustainable Development...

Strengthening health systems for universal health coverage and sustainable development

Health workforce benchmarks for universal health coverage and sustainable development.

Universal health coverage (UHC) includes the guarantee that everyone will be protected over the entire life-cycle by a defined set of essential health services fulfilling four interrelated criteria, as set out in Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (202) of the International Labour Organization (ILO): availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality.1 Insofar as it furthers heal...

Public health, universal health coverage, and Sustainable Development Goals: can they coexist?

In her 2012 reconfi rmation speech as WHO DirectorGeneral, Dr Margaret Chan asserted: “universal coverage is the single most powerful concept that public health has to off er. It is our ticket to greater effi ciency and better quality. It is our saviour from the crushing weight of chronic noncommunicable diseases that now engulf the globe”. The UN General Assembly is currently considering propo...