Millions of people in low-income countries have been forced to go without healthcare or have had to pay for it during the coronavirus pandemic, despite billions of pounds in emergency World Bank funding.
The World Bank’s $6bn (£4.45bn) emergency health fund to 71 countries in response to Covid-19 failed to strengthen health systems or remove financial barriers to using them, according to an Oxfam report
The most significant failure was in reducing out-of-pocket expenditure, Oxfam found. Every year, user fees block 1 billion people from accessing healthcare, causing avoidable deaths and increased disease transmission.
Despite clear World Health Organization guidance that countries remove all user fees for all healthcare, at least for the duration of the pandemic, 89% of the World Bank’s country projects did not commit to that. Of the eight that did, none explicitly stated that the waivers covered all health services and, in three of those eight, the measure only covered treatment relating to Covid-19.
“Let’s make no mistake, user fees for health [services] kill and are pushing millions of people into poverty,” said Marriott.
The projects also failed to increase health worker numbers, the report found. Two-thirds had no plans to hire more doctors or nurses and others only for temporary workers. In 49 countries (69% of the total), the ratio of nurses for every 10,000 people was below the WHO recommended minimum, with 34 countries not even halfway to meeting it.
In Malawi, where there is just one doctor for every 50,000 people.
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