Early health system responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Mediterranean countries: A tale of successes and challenges

Ruth Waitzberg, Cristina Hernández-Quevedo, Enrique Bernal-Delgado, Francisco Estupiñán-Romero, Ester Angulo-Pueyo, Mamas Theodorou, Marios Kantaris, Chrystala Charalambous, Elena Gabriel, Charalampos Economou, Daphne Kaitelidou, Olympia Konstantakopoulou, Lilian Venetia Vildiridi, Amit Meshulam, Antonio De Belvis, Alisha Morsella, Alexia Bezzina, Karen Vincenti, Gonçalo Figueiredo Augusto, Inês FronteiraJorge Simões, Marina Karanikolos, Gemma Williams, Anna Maresso

Risultato della ricerca: Contributo in rivistaArticolo in rivista

Abstract

This paper conducts a comparative review of the (curative) health systems' response taken by Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, these Mediterranean countries shared similarities in terms of health system resources, which were low compared to the EU/OECD average. We distill key policy insights regarding the governance tools adopted to manage the pandemic, the means to secure sufficient physical infrastructure and workforce capacity and some financing and coverage aspects. We performed a qualitative analysis of the evidence reported to the 'Health System Response Monitor' platform of the European Observatory by country experts. We found that governance in the early stages of the pandemic was undertaken centrally in all the Mediterranean countries, even in Italy and Spain where regional authorities usually have autonomy over health matters. Stretched public resources prompted countries to deploy "flexible" intensive care unit capacity and health workforce resources as agile solutions. The private sector was also utilized to expand resources and health workforce capacity, through special public-private partnerships. Countries ensured universal coverage for COVID-19-related services, even for groups not usually entitled to free publicly financed health care, such as undocumented migrants.
Lingua originaleEnglish
pagine (da-a)465-475
Numero di pagine11
RivistaHealth Policy
Volume126
DOI
Stato di pubblicazionePubblicato - 2022

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • health system responses
  • governance
  • Mediterranean countries

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