Ireland is ranked 11th in the global healthcare league

IRELAND has been ranked 11th in a new global league table measuring healthcare access.

The study, published in ‘The Lancet’ today, gives Ireland lower scores in meeting the needs of patients with skin cancer or congenital heart disease.

Ireland scored 94.6 points in total but it is trailing the first five countries that had the best levels of healthcare access and quality in 2016.

Top of the league is Iceland (97.1 points), followed by Norway (96.6), the Netherlands (96.1), Luxembourg (96.0), and Finland and Australia (both 95.9).

The countries with the lowest scores were the Central African Republic (18.6), Somalia (19.0), Guinea-Bissau (23.4), Chad (25.4), and Afghanistan (25.9).

“These results emphasise the urgent need to improve both access to and quality of healthcare, otherwise health systems could face widening gaps between the health services they provide and the disease burden in their population,” said senior author of the study Dr Rafael Lozano, Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, USA.

“Now is the time to invest to help deliver health systems for the next generation, and accelerate progress in the sustainable development goal era.”

The study used an index to measure the quality and accessibility of healthcare, based on thirty two causes of death which should be preventable with effective medical care.

They included breast and cervical cancer, bowel cancer, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and kidney disease.

Each of the 195 countries and territories assessed were given a score between 0-100.

For the first time, the study also analysed healthcare access and quality between regions within seven countries: Brazil, China, England, India, Japan, Mexico and the USA.

In 2016, the global average healthcare access and quality score was 54.4, increasing from 42.4 points in 2000.

Disparities between countries remained similar in 2016 and 2000.

There was a 78.5 gap between the best and worst performing countries in 2016 (18.6 in the Central African Republic and 97.1 in Iceland), compared with 79.3 in 2000 (13.5 in Somalia and 92.8 in Iceland).

There were major gains in healthcare access and quality in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, progress in the USA and some Latin American countries-including Puerto Rico, Panama and Mexicoslowed or stalled over the same time.

Now is the time to invest to help deliver health systems for the next generation