Too poor to pay: Call for free healthcare

Women and children are routinely paying with their lives because they are too poor to afford medical bills, reveals a new report out today. Millions of people in poor countries are dying or being pushed deeper onto poverty because healthcare in their country is not free and they haven’t got the means to pay for care they do receive. In some cases, people who can’t pay are imprisoned in hospitals until their families can clear their bills. Every year, half a million pregnant women die because they do not have access to health care, says the report, Your Money or Your Life, by a group of 62 aid agencies and health unions.

Next week, at the United Nations General Assembly, governments will have the chance to expand free health care in developing countries, throwing millions of poor people a lifeline. World leaders are due to gather at the assembly on September 23, for high-level talks about health on 23 and are expected to extend free health services in at least seven countries: Burundi, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal and Sierra Leone. But aid agencies and trade unions stress that promises alone are not enough NGOs and are urging that the move must be the start of a solid commitment to financial and technical support and be rolled out across the board to all poor countries.

“If free health care had been introduced in 2000 when world leaders promised to reduce child mortality by two-thirds, the lives of more than two million children could have been saved by now, said Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children’s Chief Executive. “Leaders have the power and the responsibility to make healthcare free for poor families. Allowing any more children to die because they can’t afford treatment is inexcusable.”

For people living in these seven countries listed, it could literally mean the difference between life and death. The figures revealed in the report are shocking. In Liberia, one in nine children will not live to see their fifth birthday and less than 20 per cent of the rural population have access to health facilities, Reuters news agency quoted it as saying. In Nepal, a newborn baby dies every 20 minutes and every four hours, a woman dies of childbirth related causes. The average life expectancy in Sierra Leone is only 34.3 years, the report said, And the country has the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world. Over in Malawi, one woman in every hundred will die in pregnancy and childbirth, it said. Just 266 registered doctors look after the entire population of nearly 14 million.