Global Health Policy and Healthcare Financing

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Global Health Policy
Healthcare Financing Role
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The world has become a global village because of advanced transport and communication technologies which have eliminated the geographic boundary. Global health is becoming an issue of concern to the global village, especially the communicable diseases. For this reason, there has been a united effort from the international society to fight various diseases.

Various international organizations have been working closely to find solutions to several health problems that affect both the developed and developing nations. Organizations such as the World Health Organization, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and many other nonprofit making organizations have focused on research on global health issues.

On the other hand, institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, and other financial organizations have been playing a pivotal role in financing research and development in the healthcare sector. In this research, the focus is to analyze the global health policies and healthcare financing as a way through which the international society seeks to eliminate diseases in the society.

Global Health Policy

According to Buse, Mays and Walt (2012), it has become apparent that in the current globalized society, the spread of communicable diseases from one country to another is very easy. A clear case in point is the ongoing Ebola cases that started in Sierra Leon, Liberia and a few other West African countries.

When it started, the world was oblivious of the fact that it could spread to other parts of the world due to the movement of people from one country to another. However, the disease has now spread to other continents, most notable in North America. Several cases of Ebola patients have been reported in the United States.

This shows that geographical factor is no longer a barrier to the spread of the communicable diseases. It is because of this fact that the international society has proposed a number of global health policies to help manage these diseases.

The World Health Organization has been working with governments in various parts of the world to establish effective research and disease control institutes to help in early detection and management of outbreaks of various communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Given its mandate by the United Nations, World Health Organization has a policy agreement with various countries, especially the developing nations which still suffer from poor infrastructural development, which allows the organization to partner with the nongovernmental organizations to establish research centers (Alexander, 2014).

The governments are expected to support such initiatives in various ways. The ultimate aim of this policy is to have strong institutions that are able to detect disease outbreaks early enough, and manage them effectively in order to avoid mass casualties. The Liberian Ebola outbreak would have been controlled easily were it that there were proper structures in place.

This is a relatively new policy that is yet to gain good foundations in the targeted countries. However, there is a commitment by the responsible stakeholders, especially after the scare that was witnessed in the affected West African countries.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention has been making parallel programs for research and disease control in the United States and many other countries in the world. The organization has made policy agreements with various governments to work in these countries and support the medical research processes and disease management. The organization is fully funded by the government of the United States of America.

Outside the United States, this organization has a limited mandate beyond research and policy development. This organization has been working with other government sponsored organizations in various countries to conduct research and to formulate policies based on the local environment.

The ability of these policies to address various problems under different contexts will be compared in order to determine a united front to be used when addressing some of the global health issues.

The United Nations and World Health Organization have been making a concerted effort to eliminate the discriminative policies that some countries have put in place for people who plan to make international travels. According to Milstead (2013), a number of countries have restrictive policies which bar people suffering from specific diseases from visiting their countries.

This has affected the ability of patients in the developed countries to seek medical help from advanced institutions. These two institutions, working together with human rights groups, have been working together to develop policies that will lift such bans in order to make hospitals in the developed countries accessible to the international community.

Healthcare Financing Role

Healthcare financing role is an important task that defines the level of progress that can be made towards achievement of specific goals. According to Teitelbaum and Wilensky (2013), in the past, financing of healthcare was considered the responsibility of the national governments. However, the severity of some of the diseases like Ebola has changed this perception.

Currently, the role of financing healthcare services has been assumed by a number of stakeholders. Nationally, the governments still remain the largest financiers of healthcare services. In the United States, the government has made concerted efforts to subsidize the healthcare services in order to ensure that there is a universal health care for all. In the global context, many institutions are now sponsoring healthcare programs.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund is the largest financier of these programs on a global context (Annemans, 2008). The government of the United States is also another major global financier of healthcare programs, especially in the developing countries.

The United Kingdom, France, and the United States have also partnered in a program meant to distribute antiretroviral drugs among the citizens in the developing nations to help manage HIV/AIDs. These drugs are now available freely to the registered victims to help them lead normal lives.

Other non-governmental organizations have also been actively involved in sponsoring research and direct medical care, especially in African countries. These organizations get funding from donors, mainly large organizations that do this as part of their corporate social responsibility to fund their activities.

These organizations have been active in war-torn countries such as Somalia, Democratic Republic, and parts of Nigeria. These organizations have also been in Haiti and Pakistan to help address the health concerns.

Conclusion

The world is fast becoming a global village as technology in transport has eliminated the geographic boundary that existed before. This has created a scenario where communicable diseases can spread easily from one country to another. In order to address this problem, the international community has developed programs that would help fight various diseases in order to inhibit their spread.

Various institutions such as the World Health Program and Center for Disease Control and Prevention have been working closely to advance research into this field to find a common way of containing this disease.

References

Alexander, N. (2014). Faces of the Ebola response. World Health Organization. Web.

Annemans, L. (2008). Health Economics for Non-economists: An Introduction to the Concepts, Methods and Pitfalls of Health Economic Evaluations. New York: Academia Pr Scientific Publishers.

Buse, K., Mays, N., & Walt, G. (2012). Making health policy. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill/Open University Press.

Milstead, J. A. (2013). Health policy and politics: A nurse’s guide. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Teitelbaum, J. B., &Wilensky, S. E. (2013). Essentials of health policy and law. Sudbury, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

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