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Low And Middle Income Countries

Decent Essays

Worldwide, approximately 1.3 billion people do not have access to affordable and efficient healthcare and out of those who have access, almost 170 million are forced to spend around 40 % of their income on medical treatment (Asante et al,2016).In low and middle income countries (LMICs), the major constraint to the access of healthcare is financial burden, where out-of-pocket payments (OPP) contribute to approximately 50 % of total health expenditure (WHO, 2010). As a result, in these countries there is high probability of many households being pushed into poverty due to high medical expenses (McIntyre,2006).The matter of concern in LMICS is that poor and disadvantaged groups of population do not have access to adequate quality of healthcare.For instance, according to WHO (2010) up to 20 % of women in rich population are more likely to have a birth attended by skilled health worker than a poor woman. Therefore, taking an action to address health inequities faced in these countries would save up to 700,000 women. Thereby, the ability of universal health coverage, is highly recognised when addressing health inequities, social determinants of health and human rights and it is heralded as “ the third global health transition” ( Rodin and deFerranti, 2012). Universal health Coverage is reflected in the UN sustainable development goals and is strongly encouraged due to its ability to provide an umbrella goal by including both, the millennium development goals (MDGS) as well as

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