Universal Health Care (English version)

 Universal Health Care

Coinciding with the outbreak of controversies over the privatization of healthcare in Madrid and some ridiculous attempts to compare the situation with the Catalan healthcare system, the journal The Lancet publishes its latest editorial dedicated to Universal Health Coverage.

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) means that all people receive the quality healthcare services they need to be effective, when and where they need them, without suffering financial hardship. Proposed as a "Sustainable Development Goal" in 2015 by the UN for 2030, The Lancet indicates that it may not be enough.

Five years from the proposed limit and with a universal view, the harsh reality is that half of the world's inhabitants, some 4.6 billion people, do not have access to essential healthcare services, and another 2.1 billion will suffer serious financial difficulties to cover healthcare costs.

With some rational efforts, UN health officials at the WHO (World Health Organization) are considering achieving at least coverage for some serious health problems that still affect many people, such as 15 priority conditions: eight infectious and maternal health conditions, seven non-communicable diseases, and traumatic injuries.

The cost of achieving these objectives may still be far off for many countries and communities. For this reason, it is necessary to implement all other preventive and environmental measures that improve health and reduce the risks of diseases: vaccinations for thirty infectious diseases until they are eradicated, health care for women in the reproductive phase and babies, the elimination of known aggressions such as the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and other recreational toxins, the control of environmental pollutants in the air, water and food or the prevention of traffic and work accidents.

In this context, it is unacceptable that some people try to make a business out of the misfortune of people who fall ill in areas where, by common agreement, we have universal healthcare coverage financed by taxes. And of superior quality.

It is also unacceptable that services are cut or their development is limited by public authorities, so that people are forced to resort to paid private healthcare. Or, even worse, that services are limited to only half the day, as is being done with the ICTUS program in Tarragona.

80% of healthcare spending is, of course, taken up by staff salaries. Less money means a reduction in professional staff or paying them miserable salaries. Fewer staff generate queues and waiting lists because demand cannot be adequately met. Insufficient salaries for highly qualified staff with long training periods cause them to leave or, as last week, go on strike.

The private sector can never compete with the public sector. It can compete in hospitality services, but it relies on it by deriving the most complex pathology or, as mutuals do, by shedding their oldest members because they generate the most expense, a shameful and illegal form of ageism. And by hiring foreign professionals, often with dubious credentials.

My mother used to say about the meat in the market: if you want good meat, it's expensive. There's cheaper meat, but it's not as good. The same thing happens with healthcare.