Health System in Nepal in Context of WHO Building Blocks

Abstract

Abstract Health system is the backbone of delivering efficient preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services. WHO has identified six building blocks of any health system. These include governance and leadership, infrastructure, workforce, financing, information management and access to essential medicines. Nepal has been striving to strengthen its health system despite several challenges in all WHO building blocks. Inadequate funds, geographical inequalities, insufficient health workforce, weak logistics, suboptimal health information system and inadequate health infrastructure have plagued Nepal health system for long. Natural calamities (e.g. earthquake of 2015) and COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed the health system. In 2015, Nepal promulgated its new Constitution that devolved and decentralized several powers of generating revenue and exercising authority to sub-national governments viz the states/provinces and local civic bodies. Though functions of health system have been clearly defined at federal, state and local levels in the Constitution, transition of the erstwhile federal health system into new governance and implementation modalities continues to be challenging. There is a strong need to strengthen all building blocks of health system in Nepal at all levels of governance.