PHA-Exchange> The right to health: more than rhetoric -Lancet (2)

[Claudio]

From: "Katz, Alison" <katza at who.int>
> I cannot agree with the statement that the two main obstacles to 
> realization of the Right to Health are failures on the part of NGOs and 
> health professionals. These elements are entirely downstream and in some 
> ways, peripheral to the central obstacles.
>
> This analysis appears to ignore the entire political economy of health. 
> There are far larger obstacles relating to the international economic and 
> political order, responsible for poverty and inequality, first causes of 
> violations of the right to health.
>
 I urge readers who feel that this analysis is a little short, please try 
and respond both to the editorial and to Paul Hunt. I do fear that this sort 
of approach to the right to
health is responsible for it remaining rhetoric.
>
> If P. Hunt's analysis has been misinterpreted in the Lancet editorial, I 
> do apologise to him.

Note: I agree with Alison
 Claudio

> The Lancet 2007; 369:438
> 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