Health sector reform in developing countries: making health development sustainable

In Mexico City or Nairobi or Manila, a young girl in one part of the city is near death with measles, while, not far away, an elderly man awaits transplantation of a new kidney. How is one denied a cheap, simple, and effective remedy while another can command the most advanced technology medicine can offer? Can countries like Mexico, Kenya, or the Philippines, with limited funds and medical resources, find an affordable, effective, and fair way to balance competing health needs and demands?

Such dilemmas are the focus of this insightful book in which leading international researchers bring together the latest thinking on how developing countries can reform health care. The choices these poorer countries make today will determine the pace of health improvement for vast numbers of people now and in the future. Exploring new ideas and concepts, as well as the practical experiences of nations in all parts of the world, this volume provides valuable insights and information to both generalists and specialists interested in how health care will look in the world of the twenty-first century.

Attention to health sector reform continues to grow. Greater awareness of the benefits of holistic change and the wide variety of tools available to effect such change can only be positive. The publication of this review of theories and experiences of reform, despite its understandable bias towards the work of the host institution, is both timely and welcome. (Sally Lake Health Economics)

Contributors write with refreshing honesty about inefficiency, poor management, and corruption, and others highlight how professional power and politics can hinder change. (Paul Garner British Medical Journal)