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Universal health coverage ensures that all citizens, regardless of their status, can access high-quality health services without compromising their financial wellbeing.
Low- and middle-income countries have made considerable gains in maternal health, child survival and nutrition, and management of communicable diseases. Even so, inequities persist between and within countries, and threaten to grow in an era of global epidemiologic and demographic transitions, urbanisation and climate change. To ensure equitable and sustainable improvements in health, poverty and weak health systems must be addressed.
The WHO defines universal health coverage as “ensuring that all people can use the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship.”
This definition of universal health coverage spans three ideals:
Several factors contribute to the lack of universal health coverage in Bangladesh.