To commemorate the significance of providing medical care to all individuals and local communities with no struggle in paying for it, UHC Day is celebrated each year on December 12th. This signifies that every person globally can acquire appropriate health services at any time and place without undergoing financial problems. The theme for 2023 is “Health for All:Time for action”.

History:

The United Nations General Assembly endorsed a resolution on December 12, 2012, calling on countries to speed up their movement towards universal health coverage (UHC), which refers to the idea that everyone worldwide should have access to quality and affordable healthcare. On the other hand, by resolution 72/138 of December 12, 2017, the United Nations declared December 12 as International UHC Day.

Aim and importance of the day:

UHC Day is a trigger for universal health coverage advocates, policy makers, medical practitioners and communities to unite and support the principles of UHC. This offers an opportunity to draw attention to good practices on UHC, remove barriers preventing access to healthcare and call on stakeholders to work towards equitable, inclusive health systems. It is remembered by conducting various events around the world aimed at sensitizing people about UHC and rallying them behind its implementation. These could entail advocacy drives, educational forums, policy dialogues, community outreaches media campaigns in addition to social media initiatives that are intended at promoting the tenets of UHC while pushing for changes in policy as well as investments that can increase accessibility of health services.

Every year’s UHC Day focuses on a particular theme about universal health coverage that may cover issues such as health equity; health financing; primary healthcare; maternal child-health or community roles in promoting UHC. The global community renews its commitment towards achieving Health for All by commemorating UHC Day thus contributing towards the achievement of SDG 3 “Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages”.

Key facts:

• The world is not on track to achieve SDG target 3.8 by 2030, which calls for universal health coverage. There has been a standstill in the improvement of health services coverage since 2015, while the proportion of population that suffered from catastrophic levels of out-of-pocket spending on health increased steadily since 2000. This global trend is uniform across all regions and most countries. UHC service coverage index rose from 45 in 2000 to reach 68 in 2021. However, progress has recently slowed down relative to pre-2015 achievements, with just a three-point increase between these two years and no change seen since then.
• Between 2000 and 2021, the percentage of people not covered by essential health services declined by about fifteen percent with minimum gains being made after 2015 indicating that still there were approximately four point five billion persons who lacked complete access to necessary medical care.
• Almost two billion people are experiencing financial hardship including one billion who are incurring catastrophic out-of-pocket expenses for health (SDG indicator3.8.2) or three hundred forty-four million who have fallen further into extreme poverty because of healthcare bills.
• In response to COVID-19 pandemic’s peak in 2021, essential services were disrupted further in ninety-two percent of states while this number dropped by only eight percentage points during the year following it, as reported at its apex in this year (2021). However, come next year eighty-four percent countries still experienced such disruptions even though they had greatly declined since before then.

It’s a day to urge for equitable policies and measures, which strive to make healthcare be characterized by solidarity, social justice, so as to pool finances and supports that will lead to the creation of health systems that are capable of withstanding shocks.