Universal Health Coverage: the NGO Santé Intégrée involves the media

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Extract from the article: The international NGO Santé Intégrée (SI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Public Hygiene and Universal Access to Health Care (MSHPAUS), on Wednesday February 2023, in Lomé, equipped media professionals on the challenges of community hea

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The international NGO Santé Intégrée (SI) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Public Hygiene and Universal Access to Health Care (MSHPAUS), on Wednesday February 2023, in Lomé, equipped media professionals on the challenges of community health and universal health coverage (UHC). This media meeting is part of the implementation of Integrated Health activities. The NGO is organising an Open Day on 10 March on the theme « Partnership, a lever for achieving universal health coverage ».

The objective of the meeting is to exchange with the media on the theme of community health in order to encourage a sustained commitment and better consideration in their press productions. The media must accompany the initiatives of promotion of community health, to reach the CSU. The journalists were equipped with three communications: The first one, « The stakes and challenges of Universal Health Coverage » was presented by Aboubacar Issa, Health Economist, Specialist in health financing, Coordinator of Programme 3 at MSHPAUS; the second, « Challenges and Priority Actions of Community Health », presented by Dr Mouchedou Abdoukaim Naba, Head of the Division of Community Health and the Elderly at the Ministry of Health; and the last, « Integrated Health, its programme and partnership strategy with the Ministry of Health », made by Ms Anita Kouvahey-Eklu, Deputy Country Director of the NGO Integrated Health.

For the deputy country director of the NGO Santé Intégrée, it is important to make people aware of Santé Intégrée and its areas of intervention. « Our organisation is little known in Lomé, but very well known in Kara. Through this activity, we want to present Santé Intégrée and say that we intervene in the areas of care for children under 5 years old. We also provide the population with the supply chain of medicines, the construction of new buildings for those who intervene in the field, and financial accessibility in the care of sick children », said Anita Kouvahey-Eklu.

Sante Intégrée works alongside governments and the local community to implement and explore an integrated approach to strengthening primary health care delivery in order to achieve universal health coverage.

Understanding UHC

Universal health coverage (UHC) means that everyone has access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship. It encompasses the full range of essential health services across the life course, including health promotion, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care.

According to Aboubacar Issa, universal health coverage is about ensuring that care is available to all, according to their needs, and that people are not exposed to the risk of very high expenses that could expose them to poverty. However, « currently the very low level of coverage that we consider is linked to the INAM health insurance. We have about 5% of operations covered. But there are other mechanisms that cover part of the population. We have the school Assur which covers more than 2 million pupils, about 28% of the population. We also have other programmes that cover pregnant women and newborns. There are other insurance mechanisms, notably mutual health insurance and private health insurance. Today, 33% of the population is covered. The challenge is to come up with a single mechanism to avoid fragmentation; when there is fragmentation of mechanisms, it is not very effective », says Aboubacar Issa.

Community health is the foundation of any health system. Community health is an important lever for the CSU. It needs to be strengthened. « Firstly, it is necessary to strengthen the supply of quality health services at all levels, to reduce inequalities throughout the country, and to allow the population to have access to quality care without experiencing financial difficulties. It is necessary to strengthen the infrastructure, equipment and human resources by making them available in an equitable manner throughout the country, and to put in place mechanisms to protect against financial risk, notably health insurance to subsidise a certain number of treatments so that people pay less out of their own pockets », explained Dr Mouchedou Abdoukaim Naba.

Established in Togo since 2004, Santé Intégrée (SI) has set itself the mission of making health care accessible to all. The NGO intends to establish a partnership with the media. This is to promote the circulation of information on UHC, its essence, its challenges and especially to enable Togo to meet this challenge by 2030.

Elom AKAKPO