By Caribbean Medical News Staff
A group of representatives from the Ministry of Health, Social Security Board and Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital and INCAP met at the Biltmore Hotel to discuss the document that is proposing four key strategies for the implementation of Universal Health Coverage in the Americas.
This meeting is responding to a mandate established by the Ministries of Health in 2013, to have a final proposal completed by September 2014, during the Executive Committee. This activity is one of the milestones in the roadmap developed by the organization to have a joint proposal.
The meeting was organized in close collaboration between the Ministry of Health and the PAHO/WHO country office. During the meeting the Head of the Planning Unit led the process as well as moderated some of the discussions.
The activity started with an explanation of Universal Health Coverage, its implication for the provision of health services in the country as well as its importance to be a common goal for different sectors and stakeholders to reach sustainable human development in any society. It was also mentioned its importance in the current the global discussions, mainly for the definition of the agreements of what could be the Post 2015 Agenda.
It was highlighted, to all participants, the importance of contributing actively in the discussion as the results of the meeting were going to be presented to the Governing Bodies to have a final document that should guide the future of the implementation of Universal Health Coverage in the region.
The activity took all day and was quite lively. The groups presented the results of their discussions based on a suggested set of questions and elements to take into account for the analysis. The four key strategic lines:
Strategic line 1: Expanding equitable access to comprehensive, quality, people- and community-centered health services.
Strategic line 2: Strengthening stewardship and governance.
Strategic line 3: Increasing and improving financing, promoting equity and efficiency, and eliminating out-of-pocket expenditure.
Strategic line 4: Strengthening intersectoral action to address the social determinants of health were thoroughly analysed, its practical implications for the country as well as the elements in which PAHO could support future implementation.
The main recommendations from all the discussions were related to how to empower or ensure community participation as well as the need to have a clear strategy on how to monitor and evaluate progress. It is well understood that there is not a numerical goal, like in the MDGs, but that can pose a risk in not having a way to measure the achievement. There have been clear and specific requests to PAHO/WHO to support the country efforts to increase in the current coverage as will be expressed in the country report.
As the National Health Sector Plan was launched 2014 the opportunity was taken, by some of the participants, to mention that there was a clear alignment of the aforementioned document with the Universal Health Coverage concept and the strategic lines under discussion.
This generated an important momentum in the discussions as the participants identified clear links with the recently approved Plan and at the end of the activity there was general feeling that the efforts that led to developed the Sectoral Plan could help in aligning donors and other funding agencies to support the implementation of the Plan.
