12 December 2024, Cairo, Egypt — On Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day 2024, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on governments worldwide to urgently address the growing need for financial protection in health care. The theme for this year, “Health: It’s on the government”, emphasizes the critical role governments play in ensuring that no one is forced to choose between health care and basic necessities like food.
UHC Day 2024 highlights the importance of financial protection in achieving Universal Health Coverage, which aims to provide everyone, everywhere, with access to needed health services, in good quality, without facing financial hardship. Over the last two decades, financial protection has significantly deteriorated, globally and in all Regions, leaving 2 billion people struggling with financial hardship and pushing 1.3 billion people into poverty due to out-of-pocket health expenses. This burden often forces individuals to delay or forgo life-saving treatments, worsening health outcomes and perpetuating the cycle of disease and poverty.
In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, one in eight individuals face financial hardship, due to spending more than 10% of their resources as direct out-of-pocket payment, when they need and demand health care. This is added to the challenge that almost two-third of the population of the region remain without access to their needed care to
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