A senior nurse has been appointed to lead a United Nations (UN) project on achieving universal health coverage for every country in the world.
Dr Pamela Cipriano, president of the International Council of Nurses (ICN), was this week named as a co-chair of the UN’s Universal Health Coverage Steering Committee, also known as UHC2030.
“Nurses and other health care workers are the catalyst that can make universal health coverage achievable”
Pamela Cipriano
The committee is a vehicle through which the UN has driven progress towards universal health coverage across the globe.
Its work has included influencing national and international bodies towards committing to universal health coverage, and helping countries build the infrastructure needed to achieve it.
In 2015, the UN adopted the goal of achieving universal health coverage, which is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as allowing all people to access a “full range” of quality health services at the point of need without financial hardship, by 2030.
Progress on the goal, the WHO said, was “already faltering” before the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to an increase in individual spending on essential health services.
Dr Cipriano said governments must make “necessary investments” in order for universal health coverage to be achieved and that, if not, then the 2030 target will be missed and “millions of people” will continue to not have access to a minimum standard of healthcare.
“The basic principles of universal health coverage are that people receive the care that they need, of a good quality and they are not forced into financial ruin,” said Dr Cipriano.
“We can only achieve these universal health coverage goals with an increased emphasis on investment in primary health care and a workforce to deliver that care,” she said.
“Nurses and other health care workers are the catalyst that can make universal health coverage achievable, but the global shortage of many millions of nurses must be addressed as the first step towards universal health coverage.”
Dr Cipriano highlighted that the ICN’s chosen theme for this year’s International Nurses Day, on 12 May, was the ‘economic power of care’.
She noted that this was about making the “irrefutable economic case” for providing the vital investment in nursing that was central to achieving universal health coverage by 2030.
This was a sentiment shared by ICN chief executive and former UK nurse, Howard Catto who told Nursing Times that improving and expanding primary care – which the UN said was key to achieving universal health coverage – was “overwhelmingly nursing work”.
In 2023, the UN General Assembly made a declaration on universal health coverage to this end, acknowledging and drawing attention to the link between nurses, primary care and achieving the 2030 goal.
Dr Cipriano added: “We need an urgent global response to the current situation, one that puts more nurses in post and more people in reach of the fundamental health care that they deserve.
“UHC2030 is a reachable goal, but the clock is ticking, and we need action now.”
Also appointed as a co-chair of the UN’s steering committee on universal health coverage was Dr Magda Robolo, president and co-founder of the Institute for Global Health and Development in Guinea-Bissau.
As part of its push for all countries to reach the 2030 goal, the UN asked that political candidates in the more than 70 countries where elections will take place across this year are “engaged” and informed on the need to ensure universal health coverage.