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Statement for PHM Technical Briefing 

Ellen Verheul, Wemos-PHM Europe

The first meeting on the Peoples Health Assembly, during the WHA was two years ago, in the NGO lounge in the basement of the Palais. And because nobody knew where that room was, we had to put up papers with arrows showing people the way. We were busy for two days to get official permission to have our meeting announced in the Journal. Last year it was much better. There was an official room, an announcement in the Journal and even a meeting with the Director General. Now WHO organised a technical briefing on the Peoples Health Movement and the Charter. In that sense, a lot has been achieved: we have the possibility to share our views with delegates and the WHO secretariat, and I think that is very important to start with. 

I am from Wemos, a Dutch organisation working on health and development issues, and I would like to explain a bit more about the PHM in Europe. In a way we are somewhat backward region, compared to what has been done in other regions. In most countries, we have not yet come far in terms of mobilising our constituencies, or health professionals. But things are starting, like in Italy where the PHM has fallen in fertile ground. Many organisations and networks also outside the health sector have endorsed the chapter and it was published in medical journals. In St Petersburg, in the Russian Federation, the PHM has brought civil society together for the first time. The charter has been translated and discussed on the website in Ukraine. Just to give some examples. 

And there is potential: we know we share a vision and a common goal and it is easier to find each other and look beyond the single issues. And we know we have something to defend in Europe: our relatively accessible health systems that are increasingly made subject to market forces, for instance under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organisation. We are asking for a full assessment of the potential risks for access to health services and the ability to regulate national health sectors. It is important that health ministries make sure that access to health services is not traded away. 

Secondly, we have a special position in Europe, since our governments and the EU are the biggest donors in health. We want our governments to finance and support comprehensive health policies, and avoid putting up vertical programmes that end up competing with each other in terms of money and human resources. We want our governments to support and respect national decision making processes in developing countries. We want WHO to do much more to support developing countries in strengthening health systems as a part of national poverty reduction strategies. These strategies should responds to peoples needs. The proliferating Global Health Initiatives should be aligned to these national strategies, instead of the other way round. 

Finally we want our governments to be coherent in their policies. We cannot allow our governments to support health for all objectives in the World Health Assembly and at the same time promote liberalisation of the trade in health services in negotiations under the World Trade Organisation. We do not want our governments saying they promote universal access to health services on the one hand and at the same time support World Bank strategies that promote commercialisation of health care and full cost charging to the patients. We call upon our ministries of health and development to look beyond the health sector, and make sure that health interests are not undermined by other policies made in other departments. We want WHO for example to start looking at the evidence on the sometimes disastrous impact of economic policies on health and act upon it. We as civil society organisations want to work with you on these issues, for we realise it is a huge task. And we want WHO to take the lead. We therefore expect our governments as WHO members to make sure that WHO at all levels will move full speed ahead. Such a health alliance can be very powerful as we saw in the last WTO Ministerial Meeting in Doha, where governments stated that patent rights of pharmaceutical industry should not limit access to live saving drugs. But this has to be implemented and there is much more to be done, with a lot of urgency. We need your full support.

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