PHA-Exchange> The right to health: more than rhetoric

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From: "Intal - Wim De Ceukelaire" <wim.deceukelaire at intal.be>
The Lancet 2007; 369:438
DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60205-0

Editorial
The right to health: more than rhetoric
It is more than 6 years since the UN Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights adopted general comment 14, that is, the right to the
highest attainable standard of health, otherwise known as “the right to
health”. But what has happened since then? Paul Hunt, UN Special
Rapporteur on the right to health outlines the progress of the health
and human rights movement in a report that he will present to the Human
Rights Council in March.

Although there have been a growing number of health and human rights
cases decided at national, regional, and international level over the
past few years, the report identifies two key obstacles that prevent the
movement from gaining momentum: the failure of most mainstream
non-governmental organisations to include the right to health in their
campaigning activities, and the failure of most health professionals to
grasp the concept of the right to health.

Take maternal mortality, for example. More than 500 000 women worldwide
die from the complications of pregnancy every year. Many of these deaths
are avoidable and so violate women's rights to life, to health, to
equality, and to non-discrimination on a scale that dwarfs other human
rights issues, such as the death penalty, that have attracted much
attention from human-rights non-governmental organisations.

Hunt argues that in the context of the right to health, traditional
human rights methods and techniques such as naming and shaming, letter
writing campaigns, test cases, and sloganising are no longer enough.
Instead, the right to health should be consistently applied across all
national and international policymaking processes by using a system of
health indicators and benchmarks, such as access to health care, to
measure the practical implications of the right to health.

Unless greater numbers of well-positioned health professionals
understand and support such endeavours, there is little chance of
putting the right to health into practice. Health professionals must
begin to appreciate that the right to the highest attainable standard of
health is more than rhetoric. It is a tool they can use to save lives
and reduce suffering.
The Lancet