Rehabilitation - is an Essential Part of Universal Health Coverage

Rehabilitation, like promotion of good health, disease prevention, treatment, and palliative care, is an important aspect of universal health coverage. Rehabilitation enables a child, adult, or elderly person to be as self-sufficient as possible in daily activities, allowing them to participate in education, job, recreation, and meaningful life tasks such as caring for family members. An estimated 2.4 billion people worldwide suffer from a health condition that could benefit from rehabilitation. Changes in population health and features are expected to increase the demand for rehabilitation services around the world. People are living longer, for example, but with more chronic disease and incapacity. The requirement for rehabilitation is now largely unmet. More than half of people in several low- and middle-income nations do not obtain the rehabilitation services they require. The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on rehabilitation programmes, as well as other health services1.