1. For each one of you, please introduce yourself: Names, your current profession (if working), and if you have studied economics before.
Diane Uwitonze currently working as a training specialist for Compassion International Rwanda office. Diane passively studied economics in secondary 2.
2. From your own understanding, how is health economics important to the health care system?
Health economics is important because the community needs to weigh their choices as far as health is concerned. To make a choice of which hospital to go to, we need to weigh the value of our expected outcome or its benefits against some sets of alternatives. Also health care providers, pharmaceutical companies also needs to make decisions about setting the right prices and providing the right quantity of health care related products and health care related services. This price setting has got a lot to do with the cost of producing the healthcare service or producing that product. Also, governments need to make decisions about how to spend their health care budget, they are interested in providing distributive justice, i.e health for the poor. They are trying to answer questions like: should health care be free at the point of service and if so which services should be included? Health care systems will make good choices when good epidemiological data are combined with health economics knowledge.
3.With the spread of global covid-19 pandemic, discuss the role of health economics principles in the future health systems strengthening.
- Production, resources, scarcity and opportunity cost
Though COVID-19 is very demanding issue because it is new and very fatale, governments as well have to keep in consideration that we have other health issues as well. It is then important to make sure that we are not focusing on it and for example losing babies who miss their vaccinations or people living with HIV dying because there are not getting their Anti-Viral drugs. We should do everything possible to minimize the damage of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s also time to decide how to best allocate the scarce medical resources we have.