Key messages in Health Systems webcast
The nature of care:
 The care you get does not depend on the price you can pay – Health as a right.
 Health care is an area of market failure..
 Healthcare an act of solidarity. Healthcare is given and received because people care. Not because it can generate a profit
 The patient has dignity and autonomy
The nature of health and health care:
 The social determinants of health are acknowledged and acted upon.
 Primary health care is an approach- has emphasis on prevention and promotion, but also makes curative care more accessible and friendly, It means close to people, is comprehensive, allows access to secondary and tertiary care
 The provider too has dignity and is happy doing what she/he does.
 Relations of production: The relationship between worker, owner, community; solidarity with community;
community as co-producers of health.
The nature of governments:
 Governments undertake it, because its their prime purpose, that’s what development is for- not because of its impact on growth or other immediate utilitarian objectives.
 The readiness to spend on health and the institutional capacity of governments to deliver health depends a lot on ideology- how it sees the role of the governments, markets, and rights. How this informs government priorities
 Inequity is a prime concern of governments. Affirmative action is undertaken to reach most marginalized sections.
 Care, especially health care is a major source of employment and a force for equity in a government where full employment is a goal.