Catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) represents out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for health care which exceed a specified threshold of household’s income or household’s capacity to pay. This peer reviewed article examines CHE and the potential for such payments to...
Experiences and perceptions of barriers to health services for elderly in rural Namibia
The attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) requires that no one must be left behind and that all people regardless of their social economic and demographic characteristics have access to quality healthcare. Therefore UHC means that elderly rural populations...
Australian Government COVID-19 disaster payments
Australia provides the COVID-19 Disaster Payment divided into three different rates based on the number of hours of work lost by an eligible recipient and whether or not they are receiving an income support payment: $200 per week for those in receipt of an...
A spatial analysis of out-of-pocket payments for healthcare in Malawi
Out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures on health remain high in many low- and middle-income countries despite policy efforts aiming to reduce these health costs by targeting their hotspots. Hotspot targeting remains inadequate, particularly where the OOP expenditures are...
Utilization of health care and burden of out-of-pocket health expenditure in Zimbabwe: Results from a national household survey
For the past decade, Zimbabwe has undertaken a number of reforms to improve health system performance and service delivery, among them include results-based financing in rural health facilities. This peer reviewed study, examines the utilization of health services and...
Sudan: Moving towards universal health coverage (UHC)
This brief discusses Sudan’s existing national plans and policies to achieve UHC. Among the national plans include the health financing reforms which led to the expansion of the Sudanese National Health Insurance (NHI) from civil servants and formal sector employees...
Sudanese returning migrants to access health insurance
In an effort to achieve universal health coverage, the government of Sudan signed an EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration which ensures that Sudanese returnees access healthcare under the country’s National Health Insurance...
Women Left Behind: Gender Disparities in Utilization of Government Health Insurance in India
A recent study conducted by Pascaline Dupas & Radhika Jain, published in June 2021, reports gender disparities within the Bhamashah Swasthya Bima Yojana (BSBY), a government health insurance program that targets 46 million poor individuals in Rajasthan, India. The...
Revisiting Ayushman Bharat Scheme: Win-win or win-lose?
Disha Bhanot, Assistant Professor at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai writes about how COVID-19 has exposed the dark underbelly of our healthcare system and health insurance schemes may have little chance of achieving sustained benefits. With an...
Burkina Faso: FCFA 16.38 billion for health infrastructure for internally displaced persons
Burkina Faso has obtained financing from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to implement a project to strengthen primary healthcare in order to improve health and nutrition. At an estimated cost of FCFA 16.38 billion, the IDB contributed FCFA 15.37 billion. This sum...
Senegal: CMU extended to wards of the Nation
On Tuesday, the Universal Health Coverage Agency (ANACMU) and the National Office for Wards of the Nation (ONPN) signed a partnership agreement aimed at extending health care to these wards. According to ONPN Director Mamadou Saliou Daillo, "this partnership agreement...
Malawi Budget Brief 2020/2021: Living the promise to leave no one behind
This budget brief reviews the Malawi national budget 2020/21 and its relation to health. Specifically, the brief analyzes the size and composition of the National Budget, with a special focus on allocations to key social sectors that benefit children. The brief also...
The Sierra Leone free health care initiative: process and effectiveness review
The introduction of the free health care initiative in 2010, which removed user fees for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five was supported by earlier evidence that showed health-related financial costs were a major barrier to mothers and children...
Sierra Leone’s free health care initiative: Financing implications
In 2010 the Government of Sierra Leone established the Free Health Care Initiative removing user fees (on drugs and consultations) for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five. The major objective of the scheme, as far as health financing was...
UN Socio-economic Assessment of COVID-19 in Ethiopia
The COVID-19 pandemic poses clear threats to Ethiopia’s reforms and relatively strong economic growth, with “wide-ranging and serious” according to a UN report. The report assesses the devastating social and economic dimensions of the COVID-19 crisis and sets out the...