Why UHC Day Is a Call to Action for the World ’s Youth

December 14, 2017Our potential as  advocates and partners in achieving universal health coverage is woefully untapped.It ’s no accident that Universal Health Coverage Day — December 12 — falls on the heels of Human Rights Day. Universal health coverage (UHC), the goal of ensuring that all people can access essential health services without exposure to financial hardship, is a dignity and a right not afforded to many around the world.Today, I remember Gabriel, a Panamanian boy half my age who first taught me how a fractured health system fails people.Where someone lives should never determine  if they live.I met Gabriel in the waning hours of our fourth clinic day, where our team of passionate doctors and volunteers was visibly exhausted after treating hundreds of patients in the remote islands along Panama ’s rugged coastline. I vividly recall watching him bear the sweltering heat as he waited to be examined, and felt proud when I saw him leave with a much-needed bottle of Albendazole and a bag of nutritional supplements for his sister back home.As I instructed the team to wrap up for the day, I suddenly noticed Gabriel running the winding path back to the clinic, stopping in front of me wide-eyed and out of breath. He urgently explained that his disabled grandmother needed medications to control her diabetes, but no health workers reached their part of the island. I asked him if he could bring her to the clinic before we left, but he informed me she was t...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news