[procaare] Re: Allocate 15 Percent of Budget to Health, African Govts Told (1)

["Pol Jansegers" <pol.jansegers@skynet.be>]

Re: Allocate 15 Percent of Budget to Health, African Govts Told (1)
- Pol Jansegers
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I'm sorry, but with all the respect I have for Achbishop Desmond Tutu or other promoters of this "15% now" campaign, I do not think it is a good idea to push African Governments to spend 15% of their budgets on health!

If the premises ("The continued loss of millions of African lives annually which can be prevented is unacceptable and unsustainable") are right, the conclusion ("to allocate fifteen per cent of their national budgets to addressing health issues") is wrong !

Arguments such as "Dead people don't eat, dead people don't need education, they don't live in houses and do not require transport or electricity. African's must first be alive and healthy to enjoy any other rights." are misleading and pure demagogy. If it's evident that dead people have no more needs, who says that putting 15% of a  nation's budget - thus withdrawing the difference from other budgets!  - will prevent them from dying? 

Everybody nowadays knows - or should  know - that TB in Europe was not overcome with Streptomycin, but with better housing conditions and less poverty.

Pouring more drugs or even more health workers into the health sector will not per se improve people's health, if they do not have the money to pay a visit to the health center, or if, in case of a real emergency, it will take them 3 days to cover the distance to the most nearby hospital. Why has AIDS prevention been inefficient for so long in Africa? Not because of the lack of funds in the health sector (they were disproportionately higher than for other programmes or other sectors, or worse: were even sitting there without being used), but because a majority of people could not even be reached by  
prevention messages, because school fees were too high for the kids of many people, because most of the small girls were withdrawn from school at the age of 8 or 10, etc., etc.

Pouring more money into the health sector will not necessarily improve a population's health. Just have a look at the statistics in UNDP's last "Human Development Report". Not a single country in the world - not even the most wealthy! - has a Public Health Expenditure higher than... 10% of GDP. So what the hell should we request poor countries to spend 15% of theirs? Malawi has the second highest figure in the world, with 9.6% of GDP. Do they have such excellent health statistics ??

If African Heads of States really want to improve the health of their people, let them fight poverty among their populations, let them invest in education programmes, in better housing and sanitation, in clean drinking water... Encourage them to put less of the national income in their own pockets (for many of them) and use it more for agriculture, for building roads, and schools,... and eventually health centers...

Dr Pol Jansegers
Public Health Consultant
Email: pol.jansegers@skynet.be