Health Financing Reforms

RAVINDRAN, TK SUNDARI; MACEIRA, DANIEL; KIKOMBA, DESIRE

The Right Reforms? Health Sector Reforms and Sexual and Reproductive Health

Women’s Health Project, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand

Lugar: Sudáfrica; Año: 2005; p. 26 - 89

One of the major components of health sector reform (HSR) in many countries has been changes in financing mechanisms. These changes have been introduced to address the growing crisis of diminishing resources required to meet the cost of providing an adequate quality of health care that is accessible and affordable to a country’s population. Have health financing reforms helped generate the resources necessary for funding sexual and reproductive health? Have they contributed to improved health sector performance, especially in terms of access to, and affordability of, services for sexual and reproductive health needs of the population? What has been their contribution to promoting equity in access to services? These are some of the questions addressed in this chapter. Discussions of health financing reforms generally include an examination of reforms in resource mobilisation, resource allocation and management of existing health resources, as well as reforms aimed at increasing the role of the private sector in health. Issues of resource allocation (and priority setting) and public-private partnerships are dealt with in separate chapters in this volume. This chapter will focus on the ways in which resources are raised to meet costs of health care services. It examines the observed and potential implications of changes in the ways in which resources are mobilised to meet the costs of health care, and on sexual and reproductive health services, with a focus on equity implications.