Zambia uses G8 debt cancellation to make health care free for the poor
News that Zambia has introduced free health care for rural people, courtesy of debt cancellation and aid increases agreed at the G8 in Gleneagles last July renders true arguments that if Africa had its debt forgiven by the rich western world, millions of lives on this continent would be saved.
News that Zambia has introduced free health care for rural people, courtesy of debt cancellation and aid increases agreed at the G8 in Gleneagles last July renders true arguments that if Africa had its debt forgiven by the rich western world, millions of lives on this continent would be saved. The development has made a difference in the lives of millions of poor people who could not access health facility, not out of their making but because fate made them poor.
The government of Zambia today (1 April) introduced free health care for people living in rural areas – scrapping fees which for years had made health care inaccessible for millions. The move was made possible using money from the debt cancellation and aid increases agreed at the G8 in Gleneagles last July, when Zambia received $4 billion of debt relief – money it is now investing in health and education.
65 per cent of Zambia’s citizens live on less than a dollar a day. Until today the average trip to a clinic would have cost more than double that amount, the equivalent of a UK worker having to £120 (US$200) just to visit a clinic. “This is one of the first concrete examples of how the G8 deal last year has made a real difference to peoples’ lives,” said Barbara Stocking, Director of Oxfam. “People often bemoan the lack of good news coming out of Africa – well here’s an example of real progress. It shows what can happen when people both in the rich world and the developing world push their leaders to deliver. Those who backed the Make Poverty History campaign last year should be proud of this achievement.”
User fees were introduced in Zambia under IMF and World Bank pressure in the early 1990s. Young girls in rural areas were the main victims of the policy as their families were rarely willing or able to pay for their treatment. Now that user fees for health have been scrapped, experience from other countries shows that there will be a surge of patients accessing health clinics across the country; many of these people would not have been able to afford care previously. In Uganda most clinics saw a doubling in their patient numbers. On the ground it will mean thousands of people get treatment for the first time in their lives in Zambia.
