April 2014 TheLancet; Introduction- In 1994, the genocide against the Tutsis led to the deaths of 1 million people in Rwanda (nearly 20% of the population at the time), as well as the displacement of millions more. During the 100 days after Easter, 1994, a bitter post-colonial divide linked to …
Read More »Health research re-orients to the post-2015 agenda
April SciDevNet; No one yet knows exactly what the next generation of development goals will look like, but one thing is clear: health no longer enjoys the limelight thrown on it by the millennium development goals (MDGs). Instead, it looks set to be one of several areas of focus. By …
Read More »RWANDA:How Healthcare Reforms Have Improved Service Delivery (part 2)
April 2014 TheNewTimes; The first article looked at how the introduction of modern health services in rural areas has significantly improved maternal healthcare while at the same time registering low maternal mortality rates and improved life expectancy. The two reforms that I describe today have also had a tremendous impact …
Read More »Accountability for User Fee Damage?
April 2014 AfricaFocus; Today, there is an unmistakable shift in international consensus away from health sector privatization and user fees toward public provision of universal health coverage (UHC) with tax-based financing. As part of broader efforts to privatize health financing in recent decades, the issue of user fees, in which …
Read More »Nigeria Finance Minister Blasts Illicit Finance, Eyes It to Fund Healthcare
April 2014 Trust; Africa is losing $50 billion in illicit finance from tax evasion and transfer pricing each year, money that could be used to finance social welfare, Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on Friday. “We could finance health and education if we put in place a system to …
Read More »INDONESIA:Birth of Indonesia’s ‘Medicare’: Fasten your seatbelts
April 2014 JakartaPost; After an almost 10-year delay, the law on the national social security system will be implemented on Jan. 1. This Law No. 40/2004 is equivalent to the Old Age, Survivor, Disability and Health Insurance Act or the Social Security Law of the US. Both laws were enacted …
Read More »NIGERIA:Ogun to roll out community-based health insurance scheme in 6 LGAs
April 2014 UHCFORWARD; Determined to further improve health indices and the overall well-being of the citizenry, Ogun State government has announced its readiness to roll out the pilot phase of its Community-Based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHIS) in six local government areas of the state. The local government areas are Abeokuta …
Read More »LESOTHO: ‘Model Hospital’ for Privatized African Health Care Threatens to Swamp Country’s Budget
April 2014 Oxfam; A new privately-run hospital supported by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the IFC, is threatening to bankrupt the health budget of one of the poorest and least-healthy countries in the world. The Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital in Lesotho is the first of its kind in any …
Read More »ZIMBABWE:Diabetes Clinics on Cards
April 2014 TheHearald; Government plans to introduce diabetes clinics throughout the country to detect the disease early as well as reduce the rate of complications. The project, funded by the International Diabetes Federation, will start with a pilot project at Harare Central and Parirenyatwa Central hospitals in May. The IDF …
Read More »NIGERIA: Why National Health Act Is Unconstitutional
March 2014 TheGuardian; IT is no longer news that President Goodluck Jonathan has signed the National Health Bill 2014 (NHB 2014) into law. It is worthwhile to briefly recall that long before the said signing of the NHB 2014 Bill into law, the bill had been mired in no small …
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