THE Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, called on the countries of the Americas to maintain investments in health, promote innovation in primary care with a focus on digital technologies, and move from theory to practice through specific policies to overcome challenges in access to health services.
“We see primary health care as a priority approach that addresses the needs of people where they live. Our strategy for its strengthening in the twenty-first century is crucial to overcome access barriers and ensure that everyone receives health services continuously,” said Dr. Barbosa at the opening of the virtual event “Strategies to ensure access to health services: overcoming barriers and ensuring continuity.”
During the meeting, two PAHO regional reports on essential health services were presented, which provided a deeper vision to understand and address the wide range of factors that act as barriers to access to primary care, taking into account the specific characteristics and needs of territories and populations.
PAHO’s analysis reveals that, even three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions to essential health services remain a significant challenge in multiple countries of the Americas. In this context, a profound transformation is needed to improve the response capacity of health systems and close gaps in access to and availability of human resources, infrastructure, supplies, equipment and financing.
The first report, “Analyzing and Overcoming Access Barriers to Strengthen Primary Health Care,” presents the results of the collaboration between PAHO and its Member States to analyze barriers to access to primary health care and formulates policy options aimed at progressively reducing and eliminating them. with particular emphasis on historically underserved and vulnerable populations.
The second, “Fourth round of the national survey on the continuity of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic”, presents the results of the fourth round of national surveys conducted in 2022 on the continuity of essential health services during the pandemic. It provides an overview of the disruptions observed in health systems at the time of the survey and analyses patterns based on data from the 17 countries and territories that participated in the four rounds.
“Even before the pandemic began, we were already facing inequality in access and intersectionality of barriers, which was a major obstacle to achieving true equity. Before COVID-19, approximately 29.3% of the population in the Americas had unmet health needs, affecting around 295 million people,” said Dr. Barbosa.
Both PAHO documents agree that the arrival of the pandemic significantly intensified these barriers, resulting in disruptions in both supply and demand for essential health services. This impact has reversed the progress made over the past 20 years toward universal access to health and universal coverage in the Region of the Americas.
“Primary health care is key to overcoming these challenges. It is the lifeblood of resilient health systems and universal health, key to ensuring better preparedness for future crises and greater equity in health services. It is also critical to reversing pandemic trends in maternal and infant mortality rates, increasing vaccination coverage and accelerating the elimination of communicable diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria,” said Dr. Barbosa.
Today’s event is the first in a series of webinars on primary care that will discuss strategies to ensure access to health services in the region.