PHA-Exch> Qatar Declaration on PHC

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: PHM Global Secretariat secretariat at phmovement.org



*Qatar Declaration: Health and Well-being through Health Systems*

*based on Primary Health Care*

*4 November, 2008*

*Preamble*

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Alma-Ata, the
Member States of the World Health Organization in the Eastern Mediterranean
Region, assembled at the First International Conference "Qatar Primary
Health Care 2008: The Foundation of Health and Well-being" in Doha, Qatar,
1-4 November 2008, reaffirm that the primary health care approach is the
main strategy to achieve better health and wellbeing for the people of the
Region. Further, they reiterate their commitment to primary health care and
its values and principles of universal access and coverage, based on equity
and social justice, community involvement and health as a basic human right.



Through this declaration the Member States express their commitment to:

·        Greater solidarity, cohesion and a shared responsibility in
supporting one another in developing health systems based on primary health
care;

·        Translation of the primary health care principles and values into
actions that improve the health and well-being of all populations, including
vulnerable groups.

* *

*The Challenge*

The Member States of the Eastern Mediterranean Region recognize that:

·        Appropriate response to change in the global geopolitical,
socioeconomic, informational, technological and climatic landscape is a
challenge for health systems;

·        Several countries of the Region are caught up in longstanding
complex emergency situations that have disrupted health systems and
adversely affected health outcomes;

·        A number of countries in the Region, particularly some low-income
and middle-income countries are struggling to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals;

·        Addressing the wider social determinants of health is critical to
achieving good health outcomes;

·        There are significant disparities within and between countries in
the numbers, skill mix and distribution of the health workforce in the
Region;

·        Despite prior commitment to the primary health care strategy, there
have been varying levels of implementation and significant inequities exist
in the financing and provision of health care and in health outcomes;

·        There is an existing and increasing high burden of chronic
non-communicable diseases, including mental health disorders, and associated
preventable risk factors, which has high cost implications for health
systems;

·        Communicable diseases continue to pose a threat to the health of
people in the Region and weak health systems are recognized as a barrier for
the scaling up of health services against such diseases;

* *

*The Commitment*

The Member States express their highest level of commitment to:



1.     Ensure that all the principles and values of primary health care are
fully integrated into the various elements of the national health system;

2.     Strengthen solidarity through appropriate means in order to support
countries of the Region to achieve universal access to quality and safe
health services.

3.     Promote the role of leadership in health development at all levels
through institutional strengthening of ministries of health;

4.     Invest in health in order to promote national growth and development
and allocate adequate resources for primary health care programmes, secure
financial sustainability and improve social health protection to reduce the
share of out-of pocket spending;

5.     Tackle the wider social determinants of health and health inequities,
building on the Region's experience of community-based initiatives, and
promote health in all policies and programmes as well as intersectoral
action;

6.     Strengthen the decentralization of the health system through
appropriate organization, management and funding;

7.     Establish and/or scale up family practice models, ensuring the active
involvement of all team members;

8.     Ensure integration of vertical programmes for control of communicable
and non-communicable diseases into the mainstream health care delivery
system, particularly at primary health care level;

9.     Promote healthy lifestyles as part of a renewed strategy for control
of non-communicable diseases, including mental health disorders and
injuries;

10.            Ensure community-oriented training programmes in all
educational settings which develop an adequate health workforce with
appropriate skills mix; and ensure good remuneration and clear career paths
to encourage the health workforce into primary health care;

11.            Expand the role of primary health care workers as community
leaders to include positive contribution to environmental protection and to
promote healthy lifestyles;

12.            Strengthen partnership for primary health care between
government, civil society, community leaders, academia and the private
sector;

13.            Support the urgent revival and revitalization of disrupted
health systems in countries in complex emergency situations and the removal
of all barriers to access to health care;

14.            Monitor and evaluate health system performance through the
development and use of national health information systems and national and
regional health observatories;

15.            Promote policy and health systems research, community-based
participatory research and knowledge translation for evidence-based
policy-making.



Qatar                    World Health Organization



Afghanistan          Bahrain                Djibouti      Egypt

Islamic Republic of Iran                    Iraq             Jordan

Kuwait                 Lebanon               Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Morocco               Pakistan               Palestine     Oman

Sudan                   Saudi Arabia        Somalia      Syrian Arab
Republic

Tunisia                 United Arab Emirates             Yemen
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20081110/810b7fc6/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Qatar declaration 2008 EA final.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 2319257 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://phm.phmovement.org/pipermail/phm-exchange-phmovement.org/attachments/20081110/810b7fc6/attachment-0007.pdf>