Health for all: Universal health coverage through self-care

Every year, December 12th marks Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day, raising awareness, celebrating progress, and urging action to ensure access to quality health services without financial burden for all people. Self-care is vital to well-being across all life stages, and empowering people to self-care through health literacy can enhance health outcomes and ease pressure on healthcare systems, thus contributing to UHC. As self-care champions, pharmacists play a key role in this evolving health landscape. This event will highlight the importance of self-care in UHC, how pharmacists can engage in and advance self-care and UHC. It will also mark the release of the new FIP knowledge & skills reference guide to support pharmacists’ professional development in self-care, underscoring the profession’s commitment to empowering individuals and improving healthcare access.
Moderator:
Lars-Åke Söderlund, Community Pharmacist, FIP; Apoteket, Sweden
Facilitator:
Mfonobong Timothy, Practice Development and Transformation Projects Coordinator, International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), Netherlands
Panellists:
Manjulaa Narasimhan, Lead, Self-care for health and well-being, WHO Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research, including the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training (HRP), Switzerland
Austen El-Osta, Director, Self-Care Academic Research Unit (SCARU), Imperial College London, UK
Safeera Hussainy, Senior Pharmacy Research Manager; Honorary Principal Fellow; Adjunct Associate Professor, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre; The University of Melbourne; Monash University, Australia
Dalia Bajis, Senior Programme Lead, International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), Netherlands
Genuine Desireh, Educational partnerships and project manager, International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), Netherlands