On September 20, aerzteblatt published the latest findings from the World Health Organization's latest report on health care for the world's population.

"In 2021, around 4.5 billion people - more than half of the world's population - had no access to basic health services," it says. It also reports that around two billion people faced significant financial difficulties if they had to pay for the services and products they needed themselves.

 "The fact that so many people cannot benefit from affordable, quality and essential health services not only jeopardizes their own health, but also the stability of communities, societies and economies," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO.

Unfortunately, the report also states that this financial hardship is increasing worldwide due to the often very high co-payments for healthcare expenses. For example, around 14 percent of the world's population had to pay more than ten percent of their household income out of their own pocket.

Even the smallest expenses can be a heavy financial burden for low-income families. According to the report, around 1.3 billion people were pushed into poverty by such payments. In addition, there are around 300 million who were already living below the poverty line before the burden.

These worrying and depressing figures mean that we must continue to push ahead with our work as best we can. Every helping hand and every penny is an enormous help. Because only together will we be able to eliminate this global problem.

The entire report is available at: aerztblatt.de, the WHO report can be viewed at Universal Health Coverage.