Abstract:
As universal healthcare gains political momentum, there is a growing international consensus against charging user fees at the point of healthcare delivery. In 1994, South Africa launched the wave of new user fees abolition policies in Africa. In 2010, both the African Union and the UN Secretary General called for free healthcare at the point of service for children under five and pregnant women. However, dismantling a user fees policy that has been in place for over 30 years is no easy task. Not only does expanding free healthcare policies routinely lead to controversy that generally arises when public policies are badly planned, underfunded, and poorly implemented, but certain groups of actors also perceive this move as a threat. However, in most cases, the continued reluctance to make healthcare free in Africa is based not on strong evidence, but rather on misconceptions around the very notion of free care. In this paper, we address nine such misconceptions about free healthcare and provide recent evidence from Africa showing the benefit of eliminating user fees for patients. Our aim is to demonstrate that when free care is properly financed and implemented, which in itself is a major challenge, certain perceptions about the principle of free healthcare turn out to be misconceptions.
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Renaud Boulanger, Matthew Hunt and Valéry Ridde – Towards a health ethics policy framework to analyse user fee exemptions – 12th World Congress of Bioethics – June 25-28 2014, Mexico.
New article published in International Journal for Equity in Health
A book chapter will also be publish soon (french only)
This article was published in open access on the Canadian Journal of Public Health. The two authors, Anne-Marie Turcotte-Tremblay and Valéry Ridde, provide a constructive critical analysis of Kass’s ethics framework for public health. The article is available in free access below on this page. read more…
This blog post written by Lara Gautier was published today on the BMC Series Blog.
A review published today in BMC Global Health Research and Policy explores whether governments have ownership of the policy making process in health financing in Sub-Saharan Africa and what exactly this ownership means. Here to discuss this and the influence of external donors in health financing policies is author of the review, Lara Gautier.
Our community resources guide is finally available! This guide is intended for all immigrants who are not a permanent resident or a Canadian citizen. Services are provided without immigration documents or proof of residence. Food, clothing, immigration, health and activities for everyone free of charge! Social Work students from McGill University, under the supervision of Dr. Jill Hanley, phoned the various agencies in Montreal to ensure the services provided. The guide is also available in French and Spanish. Thank you to all the people who contributed to its realization! read more…
This case study examines the policy process behind the introduction of performance-based financing program in Cameroon. The article was published in Globalization and Health Journal on August 1st, 2017, and was written by Isidore Sieleunou, Anne-Marie Turcotte-Tremblay, Jean-Claude Taptué Fotso, Denise Magne Tamga, Habakkuk Azinyui Yumo, Estelle Kouokam and Valery Ridde. read more…
Valery Ridde presented at the M8 Alliance Expert Meeting on Migrants’ and Refugees’ Health, held on June 23-24, 2017, in the Sapienza University of Rome, the results of a study on the health and access to care of uninsured migrants in Montreal.
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This presentation was designed by Lara Gautier for the 3rd International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP 3) held in Singapore on June 2017. The research on which the presentation was based focuses on diffusion agents’ characteristics and strategies aimed at diffusing a global health innovation (PBF) in Subsaharan Africa. read more…
Welcome to equitesante.org , research sharing site on public health interventions , particularly in a global health context.
Here you will find the scientific work and thoughts of Valery Ridde , his fellow researchers and students.
This collection of research documents deals with community-based health interventions in low-income countries and/or with issues concerning the more vulnerable populations in these countries and in Canada.
