Conference Background
(photo PharmAccess)
The health systems in developing countries are faced with fundamental challenges. We see a combination of a high disease burden, limited and unequally distributed financial resources, a shortage of services and qualified personnel to provide for basic care and thus a lack of affordable health care provision of good quality for poor and low-income citizens.
Health care insurance – whether public or private – is not a very common phenomenon and accounts for a low percentage of health expenditure in developing countries. This entails either high out-of-pocket expenditures and thus adverse effects on food consumption and other basic necessities or it implies to forgo care all together which has adverse effects on health and may imply a reduced earning capacity in the future. On the supply side we see a fragmented system lacking quality standards and lacking a structural financial basis to develop and improve services and meet the needs of the population.
The issue at stake is how under these circumstances the development of inclusive and sustainable health systems and the access to services of good quality can be stimulated.
