Page 12 - November 2021 IB FINAL

Cover Cover

A FRAYING LIFELINE: CHRONICALLY

UNDER-FUNDED AND LACKING

RESOURCES

PACIFIC ISLANDS HEALTH CARE FACES THE CRISIS OF A
LIFETIME

By Samantha Magick

The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t just highlighted the Pacific’s
fragile health systems. It’s amplified the central role that
public health plays in all aspects of our personal and public
lives; from education to culture, travel to trade.
Pacific health leaders have been prompted to question our
level of investment in health systems, how it’s been spent in
the past, and what needs to be built for the future.

Health spending
A paper by the Global Burden of Disease 2020 Health Fi-
nancing Collaborator Network in the Lancet medical journal
stated, “The context in which COVID-19 has spread globally states and territories, which bestride multiple in-
is one of grave inequality in access to health services.” Its come categories, generally spend less per capita
authors found that in 2019, before the pandemic struck, na- than the World Health Organisation recommends.
tional health spending ranged from $7 (in Somalia) to $11,345 In some jurisdictions though, figures are distorted
per person in the United States, and that government health by the high cost of sending citizens off-shore for
spending ranged from $2 to $6578 per person. Pacific island treatment.

12 Islands Business, November 2021