Today’s episode is on SDG3.8 - Achieve Universal Health Coverage. Universal Health Coverage means ensuring everyone, everywhere, has access to quality essential health care services, medicines and vaccines. It also means ensuring that health expenditure isn’t a large proportion of total household expenditure. Universal Health Coverage encompasses all of the other targets under SDG3. It’s essential - and it’s also a bit of a utopia, if you look at the current state of many health systems around the world.

Today’s guest is Australia’s Ambassador for Global Health, Dr Lucas De Toca PSM. Dr de Toca is a medical doctor, adjunct professor in medicine, and public health expert with extensive experience in pandemic response, First Nations health and rural health service delivery. He leads the Global Health Division and the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, managing Australia’s relationship with multilateral health organisations and our international development assistance in health.

Today we look at Universal Health Coverage and why it’s so hard to attain. We speak about how stretched the health workforce is in the Indo-Pacific region, and why Australia has shifted to a greater investment in primary health care since Covid-19. We speak about why financing health is so difficult for so many countries, and how Australia can leverage our immense domestic health expertise to better support the region. And - Lucas tells us why he thinks he has the best job in the world.

Since recording this episode, Lucas has made a number of exciting announcements, including Australia’s new Pacific Climate and Health Resilience Package announced during Cop29, and our new partnership with the World Mosquito Program to support the control of mosquito borne disease in Timor-Leste, Kiribati and Indonesia. Additionally, and very excitingly, Lucas announced $56.8m is going to achieving universal sexual and reproductive health and rights in the Indo-Pacific, to improve access to sexual and replicative health services in Southeast Asia.