PHA-Exchange> WHA-PHM English- pressrelease

[Claudio]

Meeting organized the People's Health Movement and AIFO (Associazione Italiana Amici di Raoul Follereau) on 19 May 2005 in the context of the World Health Assembly.Geneva.

During the 2005 World Health Assembly, held May 16 to 25, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the global advocacy network "People's Health Mouvement" representing hundreds of NGOs worldwide announced the PEOPLE HEALTH ASSEMBLY II, which will be held in Ecuador next July, with the launching of an international campaign for the RIGHT to HEALTH, in liaison with the campaign of ATTAC HEALTH for the Right to Health in Europe. 

      The meeting, attended by 120 participants, had been organized by Garance Upham1, Chair of the PHM's Disability and Economics Circle, with Sunil Deepak of health desk AIFO. The event was chaired by two distinguished members of the World Health Organization: Mr. Alec Irwin, department Equity and Health, and Secretariat of The Commission on the Socio-economic Determinants of Health and Dr. Eugenio Montesinos Villar, coordinator of the department Pro-Poor Health Policies.
      
Brief summary of the panelists' presentations

> Maria Hamlin Zuniga of PHM: PHM and the People's Health Assembly II

> How can we make the Right to Health a reality?

PHM is a worldwide coalition of grassroots activists, academics and organizations which has emerged, in the past five years, as the major global action movement on health. Equity, ecologically-sustainable development and peace are at the heart of PHM's vision of a better world. PHM promotes actions for change through awareness raising and empowerment, networking and information sharing, political pressure and resistance advocacy and lobbying.

Antecedents: 	> First PHA in December 2000 in Savar, Bangladesh where People's Charter For Health was approved. 

> The III International Forum for the Defense of the People's Health in Mumbai on 14-15th of January 2004.

Coming event:	> People's Health Assembly II July 17-22, 2005 in Cuenca, 
Ecuador: an opportunity to strengthen global action on the Right to Health as a fundamental human right and to measure the strength of the People's Health Movement in its different expressions worldwide. 


> Bernard Teper, chair, ATTAC Health (France) and REDS (European Network for the Right to Health.

> Secular economics (Laïcité économique) for the Right to Health

To develop economic « laïcité » - secularity- means to recognize the need to separate the private sector (multinational firms and pharmaceutical lobbies) from the public sector in health policies. Consequently, several priorities come to the fore : to place health at the heart of each political project, to define an agenda in order to guarantee access to health care for all, to create a complete health system including medical prevention, to apply the principle of solidarity to the social security system, to guarantee the full repayment of basic expenses of health by the public social security,  to develop at the same time a health care system of proximity and a system for secondary care, to develop a medical democracy, to create an international pole of research on medicines that would be financed by a tax on international financial transactions (such as the Tobin tax).

The declarations of Jakarta and Bangkok establish the primacy of the private sphere over the public one and represent clearly a step backward compared to the declarations of Alma-Ata and Ottawa. The dictat of the World Trade Organization prevails, supplanting the fight against certain neglected diseases in developing and developed countries and against the AIDS pandemic in particular. WHO must be imperatively freed from the rules of the WTO. In the future, the mobilization of the people for the Right to Health will be the determinant in order to guarantee access to the health care system for all the inhabitants of the planet with no exception. The People Health Assembly for the Right to Health of Cuenca in July 2005 must be the signal of this determination.


> Abhay Shukla, CEHAT2 India, People's Health Movement coordinator, India, and  co-chair of the Global Right to Health Initiative for global PHM (together with Claudio Shuftan3)
        
        > Conceiving a global Right to Health initiative 
 
We are facing a decrease, and in some cases a collapse, of universal healthcare access in both developing and developed countries, at the national and global level due to the fact that the right to trade has come to override the Right to Health, there is the need for a process presenting urgently a 'Right to Health' discourse. 

In India, the initiative on the Right to Health has been launched. As numerous photos testify, over a hundred NGOs participating in PHM-India have been holding popular tribunals throughout the country. People come and expose cases of death and injuries as a result of the denial of health care for the poor, shortcomings of a deficient health care system for the poor, and bad treatments for a growing part of the population.
The Committee on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights of the United Nations adopted the General Comment 14 on May 2000, which stipulates the right to the highest attainable standard of health. This very comprehensive internationally adopted instrument dealing with the Right to Health has to be invoked for national or global advocacy.

First, a set of clear achievable outcomes and the role of both national governments and global agencies and processes in fulfilling this right should be defined.
In practical terms, an inclusive global coordination body and a framework for country status papers on 'The State of Right to Health' in each country should be formed to ensure states' involvement throughout the process. Initially the process could be on "the right to health care".
Next, there would be reports on the Status of Right to Health Care, regional conventions and a Global report on the Right to Health should be planned. This would lead to the preparation of a Global Action Plan on Right to Health' accompanied by detailed, practical recommendations for the countries in each region and to the adoption of a 'Declaration on  the "Right to Health for All"'.
The final objective aims at raising awareness in civil society and explicit recognition by States of the "Right to health care". Consequently, health rights monitoring bodies, with People's Health Movement and civil society participation in several countries would follow the process.
The concrete interpretation of General Comment 14 could be used for monitoring and advocacy for health rights. The range of specific health rights in an inclusive larger framework could be interlinked with a health systems approach, asserting that MDGs and other vertical approaches must be predicated upon assured access to comprehensive health care.
Shukla finally called for solidarity and action and promoted the People's Health Assembly II to be held in Cuenca, Ecuador from 17 to 22 July 2005. This event embodies a good opportunity to shape this multi-dimensional initiative to realize the Right to Health.

?>Andres de Francisco, Deputy Executive Director, Global Forum for Health Research4: 

>?The key role of Health Research in the recognition and implementation of the Right to Health 

Health research is essential for improvements in health, social and economic development.
Health is a human right mentioned in various health-related human rights treaties. To fulfill the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, States must ensure the right of equitable access to health facilities, goods and services, access to the minimum essential food, to basic shelter, housing, sanitation and potable water and provide essential drugs. They should adopt and implement a national public health strategy and plan of action giving particular attention to all vulnerable or marginalized groups with the support of monitoring committees. 
In this way, Research issues could contribute to undertake an analysis of country Constitutions, reviewing how are these treaties are reflected in the latter; there could be an analysis on the mechanisms proposed, providing 'standard'  indicators (coverage, morbidity, mortality), as well as human resources 'sensitive' indicators (equity disaggregated analysis, transparency, accountability, personal experiences and real life stories). Furthermore, research could reinforce communities'weight guaranteeing community involvement, access to information, the implementation of a political agenda, access to health services and medicines and vaccines, responsiveness of the health system and knowledge of patient's rights.

Coming events: 	>9th Annual Forum for Health Research in Mumbai, 12-16 September 2005 on 'Poverty, Equity and Health Research'.

Alec Irwin, Health Equity Team and Secretariat of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health made the following conclusion:

"Mobilization around the right to health will be crucial to reducing socioeconomic and health inequities in the years ahead. Today's distinguished speakers illuminate several processes and events that are strengthening this mobilization at local, national and global levels, including the upcoming Second People's Health Assembly".

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