PHA-Exchange> Report about the new European Campaign for the right to health

[Claudio]

From: Patricia Morton 

Here is a quick report about the European Social Forum (ESF) seminars organised by the PHM Europe, European Network for the Right to Health and others. The seminars were a resounding success. At the first seminar there was standing room only and the second was also quite well attended despite being at 7pm on a Friday night.

PHM-Europe members together with the European Network for the Right to Health and other groups gathered at the Medact office the next day to see what work we could plan together. After a full day of discussion in four languages we decided that although different, the PHM and the European Network had sufficiently similar goals to join our efforts in Europe. It was said that the PHM could learn from European Network members about the situation of health and health services in their member countries and that the European network could learn from the PHM about the situation in developing countries.

We decided to launch a campaign to fight for the defence of the right to health and against the privatisation of healthcare in Europe. We drafted a call to action which was presented at the Assembly of Movements at the ESF on Sunday, see separate email, which outlines the rationale for the campaign and some dates for mobilisation. Some initial plans for mobilisation are:
1. 3 December 2004 - Day against the privatisation of public health and in support of the referendum in Hungary (there is a referendum in Hungary on December 5 which will determine whether public hospitals will be privatised or not. This referendum was called for when 300 000 signatures were collected in response to the planned the privatisation of hospitals.)

2. 18 February 2005 - Day against the European constitution and the Bolkestein Directive to coincide with the referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty in Spain (Spain will be the first EU country to hold a referendum on the European Constitution.)

3. 10-16 April 2005 - the Global Week of Action on Trade (this is a call to action by a group of NGOs, see www.april2005.org for more info).

We will post all information about the campaign on the PHM-Europe list but we have also created a new list specifically for the campaign which will advertise its activities: Righttohealth-europe-subscribe at yahoogroups.com

Regards
Pat
Patricia Morton
Global Health Watch Secretariat

Visit the Global Health Watch Website at www.ghwatch.org
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Medact is a UK charity for global health, working on issues related to conflict, poverty and the environment

Medact 
London 
www.medact.org


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