Although health care in Botswana is highly subsidized and mainly financed through government taxes (68 %), 4.2% of the households still pay out of pocket exposing them to the risk of catastrophic health expenditures. In Botswana, 83% of the general population and 58%...
The Wezou program complements CARMMA (Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa), whose scope of action is limited to Caesarean sections. This program will progressively integrate all services for pregnant women, from confirmation of...
In Togo, the government is taking a decisive step towards making universal health insurance a reality. After several reviews, the draft bill instituting the measure was adopted by the Council of Ministers on Thursday September 09. This draft bill sets out the legal...
Singapore provides a top-up of $200 to all Singaporean children aged between 0 and 6 years in 2021. The top-up will be added to their Child Development Account (CDA) from mid-Sep 2021. Approximately 250,000 children will receive this benefit. This top-up is part...
Financial health protection is one of the priority areas in the move towards universal health coverage (UHC) (WHO, 2010). As the drive towards UHC is gaining momentum globally, the need for assessing levels of financial health protection in countries, particularity...
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the figures are alarming.... 42% of AIDS patients admitted to Lubumbashi provincial hospital die for lack of money for treatment. These statistics were presented at the Journées Scientifiques, organized jointly by the...
The Togolese government launched the "Wezou" program this week. This is a specific program dedicated to the care of pregnant women and newborns. It is intended to anticipate the universal health insurance program and significantly reduce maternal and neonatal...
On Thursday August 26, 2021, the Caisse nationale d'assurance maladie universelle (CNAMU) handed out 1,115 insurance cards to indigent people in Ouahigouya, in the Nord region. These long-awaited cards will enable beneficiaries to obtain quality care free of charge,...
The basic essential healthcare benefit package (EHB) policy interventions aim to optimize efficiency while extending coverage by increasing equity of access to the defined benefits. Many low and middle-income countries introduced or updated EHBs in the 2000s. Uganda’s...
Uganda Government has continued to strengthen the country’s health system by initiating policy reforms aimed at enhancing equity in health care with the goal of attaining universal health coverage. These reforms include the abolition of user fees and the introduction...
The Minister of Employment and Social Protection, Me Adama Kamara, has pleaded with the government and the President of the Republic for health and retirement insurance for Ivorian farmers. Minister Kamara, who is also Chairman of the Interministerial Committee...
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...
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...
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...
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...
