Co-operative Health Overseas
Last Updated on Thursday, 16 April 2009 01:21 Written by David Griffiths Saturday, 14 March 2009 01:56
Co-operatives Victoria has been working with the Westgate Health Co-operative Ltd to explore options for promoting and developing health co-operatives throughout Australia. A series of Co-opHealth Notes have been prepared to facilitate this discussion. These are notes prepared on co-operative health activities overseas.
Brazil UNIMED Brazil is the biggest co-operative medical system in the world with 378 local member co-operatives operating in over 75% of Brazil's counties with 98,000 doctors and 14 million users.
Canada Health co-operatives have been a part of the health care sector in Canada since the early 1940's. Today there are some 40 consumer-led co-operative health centres/clinic in several provinces, six worker-led ambulance co-operatives and a small number of other types of health co-ops scattered across the country providing a high standard of care to over one million people.
Japan. The Health Co-operatives Association of Japan represents 129 individual health co-operatives. These include clinics, hospitals and welfare organizations. They serve 2.4 million members and have a combined annual turnover of 260 billion Japanese yen.
Singapore NTUC Health Care Co-operative Ltd is the largest health care co-operative in Singapore. It has 60 institutional and 20,000 individual members. It operates 40 UNITY pharmacies, 16 dental surgeries, 10 medical and TCM clinics island-wide.
UK In the Uk there a numerous examples of co-operatives and co-operative like organizations delivering health and social care services. These include Sunderland Home Care Associates, the South East London Doctors Co-operative and a number of after-hours GP co-operatives in Scotland. The UK Department of Health has set up a Social Enterprise Unit to co-ordinate policy on social enterprise. This includes third-sector providers to ensure that a network of support is put in place to encourage the wider use of social enterprise models in health and social care. it has also established a fund to provide advice and funding to social entrepreneurs who want to deliver health and social care services.
