PHA-Exchange> 'TARGET INDIAN ELECTIONS' - HEALTH ACTIVISTS GEAR UP TO PUSH HEALTH AGENDA & & UN official pledges WHO's commitment to challenge WTO : PRESS RELEASE : Mumbai, Jan 15th, 2004: People's Health Movement

Thu Jan 15 16:51:32 PST 2004

For media enquiries: India Mobile-098450 91319 (+91 98450 91319) /  022- 2614 7727 , 2613 2027        

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PRESS RELEASE :  Mumbai, Jan 15th, 2004                                        People's Health Movement 

'TARGET INDIAN ELECTIONS'-   HEALTH ACTIVISTS GEAR UP TO PUSH HEALTH AGENDA.

While a top UN official pledges WHO's commitment to challenge WTO, delegates from 50 countries at the International Health Forum pledges solidarity to their Indian counterparts. 

"Plans are being mooted "to take head on" with anti-people health policy makers and politicians in the upcoming elections" said a leading Indian health activist. General elections in India are expected to happen soon. 

Over 700 participants from nearly 50 countries attending the two days International Health Forum, being held at Mumbai (on 14th and 15th January), took note of the speculation of the ensuing general elections in India. They pledged their solidarity and support to Indian counterparts to design strategies to place health on the centre stage of political process. 

"We were disappointed with the National Health Policy and the pharmaceutical policy that were announced during the present government" said a spokesperson for the People's Health Movement who is facilitating the summit.  

"Kenya's experience shows that if there is public pressure, politicians will take health issues seriously" said Malachi Orondo, leading HIV/ AIDS educator from Kenya. "Today, the Kenyan President himself is the Chairman of the HIV/ AIDS cabinet committee and it is making a difference" he said. 

"WHO realizes that globalisation has lead to the further weakening of health systems, health care facilities and has increased health inequities" said Dr.Craig McClure, Team Leader for the "3 by 5" Initiative of the World Health Organization. WHO and UNAIDS is promising HIV/AIDS medicines for 3 million people in developing countries by 2005.

"We are committed to challenge the World Trade Organization" said Dr. McClure. He added that  the new Director General and his team at the WHO is focusing on primary health care, strengthening of health systems and to bring back the principles of Alma Ata, the historic declaration 25 years ago, that promised Health for All by 2000 AD.

"Globalisation has amplified the risk to life and health" said Ms. Medha Patkar. "It is true that health doesn't figure as an agenda in a world that is drowned in money and 

market. The need is to fight globalisation without any compromises" said the leading Indian Activist.    

Testimonies that gave blow by blow account of what health activists and health workers who are assembled here would call as the 'killer impact' of globalisation and militarization were eye openers. Two days have witnessed a series of testimonies.

"Globalisation is the major block in ensuring health for the rural people. The cost of health care has gone up many folds making it unaffordable" said Ms. Mamtaz Begum Maya a health worker from Bangladesh. 

"Globalisation and free trade are hitting the indigenous people in Latin America" said Hugo Icu Peren from Guatemala. "It is colonisation in a new form and pace. We will fight and reject it" he said.

"100,000 Latin Americans badly need medicines to treat HIV/ AIDS without which they will die" warned Richard Stern an HIV/ AIDS specialist and human rights activist from Costa Rica. 

Participants from Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ecuador and Africa gave a blow by blow account of the negative impacts of wars and conflicts. In a moving testimony, Dr. Jihad Mashal, a neurosurgeon from the Occupied territories of Palestine, highlighted that Israeli check points have resulted in 72 women delivering at check points. "Nearly half of the children didn't survive. Military occupation is preventing access to health facilities and is bad for health and life", he said. 

"Continued disrespect of the International Humanitarian Law was noted as the single largest cause of the growing humanitarian emergency" remarked the United Nations recently, referring to the deteriorating situation in Palestine. UN estimates that the world spends more than 800 billion US dollars every year for military expenditure whereas just 9 billion US dollars are required to provide water and sanitation for the people in developing countries.

"The health movement will be holding a session in New Delhi to galvanise strategies to push health in the next elections" said Dr. T. Sundaraman, a member of the organising committee of this two-day event. "We hope to learn from Latin America and Africa where health activists have managed to push health into the political process' added Dr.Thelma Narayan, a community health expert from India. 

Members of PHM will be actively involved in the World Social Forum to strengthen alliances with social movements to push the agenda of Health For All. 

According to the People's Health Movement, launched at the first People's Health Assembly in Bangladesh in 2000, urgent action is required to place health as a political agenda and fight forces of globalisation and militarization. 

People's Charter for Health, the guiding spirit of the People's Health Movement is the largest consensus document on health in the world translated into more than 40 languages. The latest additions are Sinhalese and Telugu. 

Dr. Ravi Narayan                                    Dr. B . Ekbal

Co-ordinator: PHM Secretariat                Convenor Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (PHM India)

For media enquiries: 

India Mobile-098450 91319 (+91 98450 91319)- Unni & 

022- 2614 7727, 2613 2027  (CEHAT) E-mail: unni at phmovement.org      or  cehatpun at vsnl.com  

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Networks

      Asian Community Health Action Network (ACHAN); Consumers International- Regional Office for Asia     and the Pacific (CIROAP); Dag Hammarskjold Foundation (DHF); Gonoshasthaya Kendra, (GK), Health Action International (HAI) - Asia-Pacific - HAIAP; International People's Health Council (IPHC), Third World Network (TWN); Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR)

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