On 12 December 2012, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed a resolution urging countries to accelerate progress toward universal health coverage. To insure the individuals and communities receive the full spectrum of essential and quality health services across their life course without facing any financial hardship. In this context, we review a several QU- Health prof. opinions about the important of that everyone, everywhere should have access to quality, affordable health care.
Dr. Hanan Abdul Rahim, Dean, College of Health Sciences, committed, “The COVID19 pandemic was a strong reminder of why we need resilient healthcare systems. When healthcare systems are resilient, they cannot only deal with the emerging crisis effectively, but they also maintain other essential services in a safe and high quality manner. Resilient systems also learn lessons for the future, and this is critical, since COVID19 will likely not be the last pandemic the world sees. We are very fortunate in Qatar that the healthcare system demonstrated resilience by not only managing the pandemic effectively but by adapting so that other services were not affected and people continued to have access to high quality and safe care.”
Manar E. Abdel-Rahman Elhassan, Associate Professor (Biostatistics), mention the role of QU in educating the community about the importance of providing quality health care. She said, “Universal Health Coverage (UHC) requires the engagement of stakeholders among which is academia. Qatar University (QU) is contributing, to health professional education and training, which forms the backbone of health care delivery under UHC. It continues to conduct quality research in areas pertinent to public health disseminated through national and international conferences and workshops. Through events, initiatives, and engagement with the community and important stakeholders like the Ministry of Public Health and health care institutions, QU is contributing to the provision of quality health services to all people in Qatar.”
Dr Randa Abidia, Professor in Public Health Dentistry, College of Dental Medicine, said, “Universal health coverage is the ability of the whole population to access all the health services that they may need at the time and place they need them. This should be without financial hardship incurring to them. The facilities that are included in this are many, starting from a full range of essential health services, health promotion and prevention of diseases as well as treatment needed, rehabilitation services, and palliative care. Therefore, universal health coverage is a major goal for health reform in many countries and a priority objective of WHO.”
“The WHO has stated that improving health outcomes through access to Universal Health Coverage makes economic sense. When this is not available, and citizens may not be able to afford effective medical treatment, countries lose valuable human capital. Therefore, by ensuring that all the people have affordable health care coverage is necessary in order to move towards a healthier and more productive society.” Dr. Randa adds.
Marguerite Sendall Associate Professor, Health Promotion, college of health science, talked about Providing comprehensive health care and its relationship to community development, she said, “As humans, we strive to be productive, in whatever way this is meaningful to us. Productivity gives us a sense of purpose, provides us with social connectedness, contributes to social capacity and creates a sense of community. However, to be productive, we need to be healthy and to be healthy; we need access to comprehensive e health care. Hence, health and productivity go hand in hand and underpin our value to community and society.”
Dr. Mohammed Fasihul Alam, Assistant Professor of Public Health, said, “Globally health care policy makers have to spend and allocate resources so that those in the society who need most can be supported proportionately to ensure equality in health care service provisions for a population. Providing right amount of resources across different disease areas can also bring efficiency in health care systems. This is more of a true at a time of the current pandemic when, for example, nobody is safe unless everybody is safe via vaccination.”
Dr. Ghadir Fakhri Al-Jayyousi, Assistant Professor of Health Education and Promotion, committed, “Poor-quality care is wasteful, costly, and dangerous. Universal access aims to enable everyone to obtain the services that address the significant causes of the disease and ensures that those services are of high quality to improve patients’ health outcomes. The universal health coverage is to ensure that all people obtain the health services they need without suffering financial adversity when paying for them. Regular and reliable access to health services can prevent disease and disability, identify and treat various health conditions.”
Karam I. I. Adawi, Associate Professor, said, “Investing in health systems by allocating resources efficiently and equitably builds a safer and healthier society. The COVID 19 crisis has shown that “no one is safe unless everyone is safe.” Everyone should have access to quality and affordable health services when needed, so people are healthy and productive, achieving their fullest potential through their lifetime. Further, investing in healthcare contributes to building resilient populations who can compete effectively in the global economy.”
Dr. Giridhara Rathnaiah Babu, Professor of Population Medicine, College of Medicine, talked about the necessary of Providing comprehensive health care and its relationship to community development. He said, “UHC promotes social cohesion, as societies, which are equal in times of need, tend to have more productivity. Protection of human security is achieved through stronger health services, leading to better health and thus societal development (5). Research suggests that an increase in public spending on healthcare is not just associated with reduction in mortality rate but also increases in per capita GDP. (Six, 7) Thus, equal access to UHC will translate to effective community development (8), as well as economic and human growth.”
Source: QATAR UNIVERSITY
