PAHO director wants greater investments in primary care to achieve universal health
GENEVA, Switzerland, CMC – The Director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr Carissa F Etienne, says achieving universal health requires greater investments in primary health care, financial mechanisms that guarantee access to care, reducing out-of-pocket health spending to almost zero and building a skilled workforce.
Speaking at a panel discussion held on the side-lines of the 75th World Health Assembly, Dr Etienne stated that “primary care is the foundation for achieving universal health access and coverage, the Sustainable Development Goals and human development,” but “unless we invest more in primary care, we won’t get there”.
PAHO estimates that about a third of the population in the Americas, including the Caribbean, does not have access to primary care.
It also said that the average investment in health is 4.2 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), below the six per cent stipulated in PAHO’s 2014 Strategy for Universal Access to Health and Universal Health Coverage.
“There must be increased investment in health,” Dr Etienne stressed, adding that 30 per cent of that investment should go to primary care.
The Dominican-born PAHO director also indicated that “significant investments have been made in the development and training of tertiary and secondary level health workers, but not much in primary care.”
She urged Caribbean countries to work with academic institutions to have “primary health physicians that understand the communities, and nurses and other health workers for primary health care”.
In addition, Dr Etienne called for more investment in referral systems, digital transformation, and equipment and supplies to ensure quality care.
“Unless we increase the capability of primary health care to deliver quality services, our people will continue to bypass primary care and go to the hospitals where the cost is so much more,” she said.
The PAHO director asked delegates to take these messages back to their Heads of State.
“Long before the pandemic, health systems were in crisis and broken. COVID-19 made it clear that we have not developed them sufficiently,” she said, adding that Heads of state “must also take the lead in radically transforming our health services based on primary care”.
