Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria

Abstract

The history of UHC shows that it was ï€rst muted at 58th World
Health Assembly in 2005 and a widely adopted resolution was
adopted that every country should develop a plan to transit to
UHC.1 UHC was passed by a United Nations resolution on 12
December 2012 as a pillar of sustainable development and
global security.2The Director General of the World Health
Organization, Margaret Chan asserts that UHC is “the single
most powerful concept that public health has to offerâ€.3Jim
Yong Kim, the President of the World Bank stated that
“achieving UHC and equity in health are central to reaching the
global goals to end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared
prosperityâ€.4
UHC refers to a system in which everyone in a society can get
healthcare services they need without incurring ï€nancial
hardship.5The conceptimplies that each one is able to get the
required health services without suffering or having to sell
personal belongings. Equity of access to health services of all
type is key to universal health coverage policy. All persons
should be able to use the health system and not only those who
can pay for it.
The WHO has listed the following as essentials for UHC:
health ï€nancing, health work force, national health policies,
service delivery and safety, essential medicines and health
products and health statistics and information system.6One of
the key functions of the health system is that it should treat
people decently while the services are ï€nancially fair. The
three dimensions of UHC are the proportion or types of persons
in a population enrolled, the services available and the
proportion of costs covered.
In terms of coverage, the following types are important to note:
availability, accessibility, acceptability, contact and effective
coverage. Availability coverage deals with the types of health
services that are provided, where they are located and by whom
they are being provided, whether in the public or private sector.
Accessibility coverage refers to what extent services are within
reach. Acceptability coverage focuses on the affordability and
cultural appropriateness of the services. Contact coverage
refers to the extent the services are used. Effective coverage
deals with the extent the services are satisfactory from a safety
and quality perspective.7