快猫短视频

People in Mediterranean countries enjoy better healthcare than anywhere else
in the world, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO has carried
out a global assessment of how well governments care for their sick, and
published it this week as part of its World Health Report.

The assessment highlights the failure of other industrialised nations,
including Germany and the US, to capitalise on the huge sums they spend on
medical treatment, and even castigates poor countries for glaring health
inequalities. 鈥淚t will have a lot of political impact,鈥� says Chris Murray, head
of health policy at the WHO.

Commenting on the findings, WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland says:
鈥淚t is essential for decision makers to understand the underlying reasons so
that鈥� the health of populations can be improved.鈥� Julian Le Grand, a health
policy expert at the London School of Economics, says, 鈥淚t鈥檚 all rather
political鈥攐ne can clearly see Brundtland鈥檚 influence鈥攁nd rather to
be applauded.鈥�

In order to arrive at the ranking, WHO researchers considered several
factors: health and life expectancy, health inequalities, patient satisfaction
and the fairness of funding. The final figures show how efficiently countries
translate expenditure into good healthcare. In the index, 1 is the best possible
rating, 0 the worst.

France comes top with a score of 0.994. Italy is second, with Spain and Malta
also in the top 10. Despite the world鈥檚 highest health spending per head, the US
can manage only 37th place in the ranking. At the heart of its problems, Murray
says, are huge inequalities and the failure to match spending on high-tech
medical technology with investment in basic preventive public health, such as
vaccination and accident prevention
(快猫短视频, 10 June, p 19).

The report notes that in many countries, 鈥渟ome if not most physicians work
simultaneously for the public sector and in private practice. This means the
public sector ends up subsidising unofficial private practice.鈥�

In addition, Murray told British health ministers last week that Britain鈥檚
position, at 18th, is pushed down by patient dissatisfaction and a national life
expectancy significantly lower than the best-performing countries such as
France.

Such quibbling over rankings will mean little to the developing countries at
the bottom of the list of 191 nations. 鈥淭here are parts of the world where there
are large private healthcare sectors and almost no government regulation,鈥�
Murray says. 鈥淚ndia is a prime example.鈥�

Desperately unfair funding is also a major concern, he comments. 鈥淚n many
countries, from Tanzania to China to Brazil to Russia, families are spending 50
per cent of their income on healthcare. This is appalling.鈥� Ironically, China,
one of the last great bastions of communist rule, has one of the least fair
health systems in the world. Murray says that Oman, on the other hand, is an
example of a developing country that has taken giant strides in just two decades
by investing heavily in a national health service.