Stronger with Primary Health Care: Measuring & Improving Health Systems For Crises & Beyond

3 June 2021

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Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phudit Tejativaddhana, M.D, Director of ASEAN Institute for Health Development, Mahidol University took part in the event “Stronger with Primary Health Care: Measuring & Improving Health Systems For Crises & Beyond” held by PHCPI Partnership on June 3rd. This event connects Allies Improving PHC, country stakeholders and global partners to reflect on the role of PHC in emergency response and recovery during crisis.
Highlights of the Meeting: Dr. Asaf Bitton, Executive Director, Ariadne Labs presented about the importance of strong health system that can response and prevent crisis, how to make invisible things become visible by improvement with support from science team, partners and international organizations.
The Minister Venko Filipche, Minister of Health of the Republic of North Macedonia discussed about how understanding characteristics of health system could be helpful in engaging in Covid19 response. Moreover, he mentioned about the interconnectness not only in primary level but also in secondary and tertiary level.
Professor Mamadou Samba, Director General, Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene Côte d'Ivoire presented about what Côte d'Ivoire is doing in response to the pandemic and their effort in making everyone accessible to healthcare system, also explained about different impact of the pandemic on different parts of Côte d'Ivoire.
Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Malaysia Health director-general gave a talk about Malaysian’s PHC system in response to the pandemic and how critical public health system is during the pandemic. He also raised concerned about recent emerging Covid cases in Malaysia and the factors that caused this happen such as crowded public gathering. Strengthening the resilience of PHC and healthcare capacity in response to crisis is very important.
Dr. Ibtihal Fadhil, Founder and Chairperson, Eastern Mediterranean NCD Alliance presented about the concern regarding the gaps in integrating PHC into the emerging prevenance of communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases.
Freddy Nkosi, Country Director, Democratic Republic of Congo discussed about what Congo has learned from the previous Ebola pandemic as key factors in response to the current pandemic (social distancing, hand washing, isolation, etc) and lessons that we can utilize PHC to deal with future crisis.
Beth Tritter, Executive Director, Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI) stressed on the different challenges depending on each region during the pandemic Covid19 such as different vaccination demand, and the importance of global partnership.
Dr Suraya Dalil, Director, Special Programme on Primary Health Care, WHO presented about three components of PHC, key documents about PHC by WHO and UNICEF, operational framework, PHC theory of change, monitoring and evaluation conceptual framework.
Notetaker: Dr. Hue Man Vo, PhD Graduate, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan