Poverty is a major problem. In some developing countries health facilities have improved considerably, creating a health divide where those who can afford it can receive good quality care. Health gaps typically mirror equality gaps. For the enormous numbers of people without access to health, there is a terrible paradox: poverty exacerbates poor health while poor health makes it harder to get out of poverty.
As detailed further on this site’s global health overview page, policies such as the IMF and World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Programs through the 1970s and 1980s have reduced the ability of many poor countries—many African nations in particular—to provide health services for their populations.
The same ideology encouraging those inappropriate health policies have continued to this day and privatization has often been preferred by these international financial institutions even if they have been shown over and over to be inappropriate for developing countries.