Cross-cutting finding: The health system could go much further and respond more deliberately to the majority of Ugandans, who live in rural poverty. Currently, the essential package of health services is underfunded, leading to stock-outs of essential medicines and low quality of care. OOP expenditure is high (at over 50 percent of total health expenditure) and there is also high risk of catastrophic health expenditures. Health workers are not yet working in the required numbers in rural districts, and households risk further impoverishment due to informal fees in the public sector or formal fees in the private sector. .
