Press. voanews.com
At least half
the world's population is unable to access essential health services and many
others are forced into extreme poverty by having to pay for healthcare they
cannot afford, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. Some 800
million people worldwide spend at least 10 percent of their household income on
healthcare for themselves or a sick child, and as many as 100 million of those
are left with less than $1.90 a day to live on as a result, the WHO said.
In a joint
report with the World Bank, the United Nations health agency said it was
unacceptable that more than half the world's people still don't get the most
basic healthcare.
"If we are
serious - not just about better health outcomes but also about ending poverty -
we must urgently scale up our efforts on universal health coverage," World
Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement with the report.
Anna Marriott,
health policy advisor for the international aid agency Oxfam, said the report
was a "damning indictment" of governments' efforts on health. "Healthcare,
a basic human right, has become a luxury only the wealthy can afford," she
said in a statement.
"Behind
each of these appalling statistics are people facing unimaginable suffering -
parents reduced to watching their children die; children pulled out of school
so they can help pay off their families' health care debts; and women working
themselves into the ground caring for sick family members."
The WHO and
World Bank report did have some positive news: This century has seen a rise in
the number of people getting services such as vaccinations, HIV/AIDS drugs, and
mosquito-repelling bednets and contraception, it said.
But there are
wide gaps in the availability of services in sub-Saharan Africa and southern
Asia, the report found. In other regions, basic services such as family
planning and child immunization are more available, but families are suffering
financially to pay for them.
Yong Kim said
this was a sign that "the system is broken". "We need a fundamental shift in the way
we mobilize resources for health and human capital, especially at the country
level," he said.