HEALTH is wealth and healthy and happy people on this planet surely make a great difference in striving for attaining the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Education is of paramount importance for the people of this planet and the people are most sincerely urged and encouraged to learn more about the slogan of health “prevention is better than cure” and practise properly on the “good guidance for health for all” for healthy and happy living.
Lifelong learning makes all of us be wise men on this planet and “learn till we are dead” and “learn while we earn and earn while we learn”; the people of this planet should, therefore, learn more about the health-related Goal # 3 and its targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); there has never been before greater need for commitment to health as a human right to be enjoyed by all, rather than a privilege for the wealthy few and ensuring that all people can access the health services they need – without facing financial hardship – is key to improving the well-being of a country’s population.
The World Bank Group and World Health Organization re-leased a joint framework for monitoring progress toward universal health coverage by 2030 with two targets, one for financial protection, and one for service delivery.
Your family health expenses should be reduced with the equitable and improved access and quality to the health care services; it is learnt that at least half the world’s population still lacks access to essential health services; furthermore, some 800 million people spend more than 10 percent of their household budget on health care, and almost 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty each year because of out-of-pocket health expenses.
The achievement of SDGs is aiming and ensuring for the preservation, protection and perpetuation of a healthy and happy planet as well as for the peace and prosperity of the people living in this planet.
Equity (pro-poor), empowerment (pro-woman), environment (pro-nature) and employment (pro-job) are four essential requirements for the human capital development in this planet; and “Gender equality in health means that women and men, across the life-course and in all their diversity, have the same conditions and opportunities to realize their full rights and potential to be healthy, contribute to health development and benefit from the results.”
Observation has shown that if the world is serious about meeting its goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage by 2030, the International Organizations and the countries across the globe should be committed to work together in unison in order to increase access to essential health services, en-sure that people don’t fall into poverty because of health expenses.
People in this planet still spend their considerable portion of income on their house-hold health expenses; the health related Target 3.8 of SDGs has two indicators – 3.8.1 on coverage of essential health services and 3.8.2 on the proportion of a country’s population with catastrophic spending on health, defined as large household expenditure on health as a share of household total consumption or income.
Learn from the SDGs that a number of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015 have targets that relate to health and one goal – SDG 3 – focuses specifically on ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages.
Emphasize on the Target 3.8 of SDG 3 – achieving universal health coverage (UHC), including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all - which is the key to attaining the entire goal as well as the health-related targets of other SDGs.
Money power, Manpower, Material power and Mind power are of paramount importance for achieving all the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and wish-to-do, effort, mind and wisdom are four means of accomplishments which make the impossible possible which should be well cultivated.
The Public-Private Partner-ship plays a crucial role in implementing the health care services in the grassroots communities and the cooperation and collaboration in between the public organizations/ institutions and private corporations/ companies/ enterprises need to be expanded, extended and enhanced.
Knowledge is also power and needless to say that the ownership is also important for the people in the rural areas and the people are earnestly urged and encouraged to actively and energetically involve and participate in various community-based health campaigns as well as health services in their grassroots communities to be held and done in cooperation with the public organizations/ institutions and private corporations/ companies/ enterprises.
Estimation for the last decade, although data limitations preclude precise measurement of the number of people with adequate health service coverage, has clearly shown that at least half of the world’s population do not have full coverage of essential health services.
Hunger is the worst disease and poverty is the worst suffering for all the people of this planet and the achievement of SDGs Goal # 1 “achieving zero hunger and ending poverty” can definitely make the underprivileged people mostly in the rural areas more nourished and healthy.
Evidence shows that many more people today are living healthier lives than in the past decade: nevertheless, people are still suffering needlessly from preventable diseases, and too many are dying prematurely.
As we all have noticed, over-coming disease and ill health will require concerted and sustained efforts, focusing on population groups and regions that have been neglected.
Learning the message, from the 2018 SDGs report, that men-tioned “The maternal mortality ratio has declined by 37 per cent since 2000. Nevertheless, in 2015, 303,000 women around the world died due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth. Globally, from 2000 to 2016, the under-5 mortality rate dropped by 47 per cent, and the neonatal mortality rate fell by 39 per cent. Over the same period, the total number of under-5 deaths dropped from 9.9 million to 5.6 million.”
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a global blueprint for dignity, peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and in the future. The Union of Myanmar has adopted the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan (MSDP) (2018-2030) which is drawn up in coordination with the SDGs and it is being implemented with the peoples’ participation.
Happy to significantly mention in this article that according to the annual budget the Ministry of Health and Sports of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar has been allocated more budgets during this incumbent Government due to the priority given by the people.
Youth are the future leaders for all nations and health education is of crucial importance for their healthy, happy and long-lived so that health education programmes on HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis B as well as Drugs-related diseases need to be conducted in schools, colleges and Universities.
Progress being made in many areas of the 2030 Agenda as highlighted by the SDGs report 2018 is encouraging and promising.
Labour productivity globally has increased and unemployment rate decreased; more than 100 countries have sustainable consumption and production policies and initiatives and in the least developed countries, the proportion of the people with access to electricity has more than doubled.
After a prolonged decline, the number of undernourished people rose from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016, mainly due to conflicts and drought and disasters linked to climate change.
Noteworthy of the fact that globally, almost 12 percent of the world’s population (over 800 mil-lion people) spent at least one tenth of their household budgets to pay for health services in 2010, up from 9.7 percent in 2000.
Evidence shows that unsafe drinking water, unsafe sanitation and lack of hygiene continue to be major contributors to global mortality, resulting in about 870,000 deaths in 2016: these deaths were mainly caused by diarrhoeal dis-eases, but also from malnutrition and intestinal nematode infections.
“Today’s technology makes it possible to collate the data we need to keep the promise to leave no one behind. But, we need political leadership, resources and commitment to use the tools now available. With just 11 years left to the 2030 deadline, we must inject a sense of urgency. Achieving the 2030 Agenda requires immediate and accelerated actions by countries along with collaborative partnerships among governments and stake-holders at all levels. The objective is to be more effective, cohesive and accountable. We stand ready to work with all Member States to make the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for everyone, everywhere.” (António GUTERRES Secretary-General, United Nations.)
May all beings be healthy, happy, wealthy, peaceful, prosperous and long-lived!! May the Dhamma, love, peace, joy, prosperity and happiness be with you!!!
References: (1) The World Health Report, Health Systems Financing, The Path to Universal Cover-age, World Health Organization (WHO), 2010
(2) Tracking Universal Health Coverage, 2017 Global Monitoring Report, World Health Organ-ization (WHO) and the World Bank IBRD-IDA World Bank Group
(3) The Global Health 50/50 Re-port 2018, The Global Health 50/50 initiative is housed by the University College London Centre for Gender and Global Health. www.globalhealth5050.org
(4) The Sustainable Development Goals Report, 2018, United Nations
(5) World Health Statistics 2018, Monitoring health for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), World Health Organization (WHO)
By Htun Tin Htun
GRAPHIC: BT
Ref; The Global New Light of Myanmar