Health Financing “101”

IAPB spearheaded an initiative in Sydney recently, to bring together Vision 2020 Australia members in a workshop on Health Financing. Regional Chair, Amanda Davis, dubbed it an “opportunity to see how much you don’t know” – only fitting given that our facilitators for the day had decades of expertise and experience that they were attempting to impart in just a few short hours. Kirsten Armstrong from the Fred Hollows Foundation is an actuary and her colleague Debbie Muirhead a health economist. Whilst you didn’t need a degree to understand key concepts on the day, Kirsten and Debbie’s depth of knowledge and nuanced approach was much appreciated.

The aim of the workshop was to get Vison 2020 Australia members on the same page – to get a common understanding of terminology with a view to generating some common advocacy messages down the track; we need to be speaking the same language to have the best impact. Much of the feedback from the day has been that it would be fantastic to tailor a similar workshop to be held “in-country”– perhaps something that could be added to Eye Care of Sub-sectoral working group meetings. Please don’t hesitate to drop me or Amanda a line if you think you or your organisation might be interested.