WHO Regional Director Hails Universal Health Programme

#Politique

Its Regional Director for Africa was received in audience February 22, 2019 by the Minister of State, SG at the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, on behalf of the Head of State.

World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, has described as salutary the decision taken by Cameroon’s Head of State, Paul Biya, to ensure a universal health coverage for its citizens. The Botswana-born who was on a working visit to Cameroon made the declaration on Friday February 22, 2019 after an audience granted her, on behalf of the Head of State, by the Minister of State, Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

Talking to journalists after the audience, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said, “I and the Minister of State discussed one of the top priorities on health which is the Head of State’s decision to work towards ensuring a universal health coverage for Cameroonians which entails ensuring that every single citizen has access to essential health services not only for treatment of illness but also for prevention of diseases.”

With the Minister of State, “we exchanged on the necessity for this and spoke about the financing for health. I assured the Minister that the WHO has adopted the same objective at the global level as all Ministers of Health are working towards this.” She added that, “I was able to assure the Minister of State that the World Health Organisation is absolutely committed to accompany Cameroon in accomplishing this universal health coverage for its citizens through our country office.”

The WHO Regional Director for Africa disclosed that, “in the African region, as part of our transformation agenda, we have also held Ministers of health to adopt the ambition to move towards universal health coverage.”

She noted that she was touched when the Minister of State “told me that when we train health personnel we need to tell them not only to be efficient and knowledgeable but also to treat members of the public with kindness and compassion because when somebody is in the hospital or clinic, they do not only need the technicity of the person taking care of them but also the humanity.

I recognised that we sometimes focus on technical aspect and forget the human aspect which is also important.” Worthy of note is the fact that President Paul Biya has been resolute in materialising the Universal Health Coverage scheme. During his State-ofthe-nation’s address on December 31, 2017 President Biya said, “Our country’s health map is getting denser each year, with the construction of about one hundred health centres, sub divisional medical centres and district hospitals…

We will continue our efforts to provide quality and universal healthcare to our population… In this regard, I have instructed the Government to finalize discussions on ways to progressively establish a universal health coverage system.” Other national addresses thereafter continued to harp on the need to get the plan operational. Reason why stakeholders concerted and disclosed that the first phase of the Universal Health Coverage targets over 22 million people with particular attention on children and pregnant women.

Practically, the operation consists in subsidizing vaccination healthcare services for children from zero to five years, pediatric care for children from zero to 15 years as well as gynecology/obstetrics problems for pregnant women. Major fatal ailments like HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, cancer, dialysis, schistosomiasis, et al are equally on programme.