PHA-Exch> Health systems and the right to health: an assessment of 194 countries

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) <ruglucia at paho.org>
crossposted from: EQUIDAD at listserv.paho.org

 *The Lancet released a special report on the right to health on 10 December
2008*
*International Human Rights Day, to mark the 60th anniversary of the
Universal *



*Health systems and the right to health: an assessment of 194 countries*



Gunilla Backman MSc a   , Paul Hunt MJur b,  Rajat Khosla LLM b,  Camila
Jaramillo-Strouss LLM d,  Belachew Mekuria Fikre LLM b,  Caroline Rumble
MBChB b,
David Pevalin PhD c, David Acurio Páez MPH e,  Mónica Armijos Pineda MA e,
Ariel Frisancho MHPPF f, Duniska Tarco MD g, Mitra Motlagh LLM h, Dana
Farcasanu MPH i, Cristian Vladescu PhD j

a<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff1%23back-aff1>Nordic
School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden

b<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff2%23back-aff2>Human
Rights Centre, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

c<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff3%23back-aff3>School
of Health and Human Sciences, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

d<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff4%23back-aff4>Office
of the Mayor of Bogata, Colombia

e<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff5%23back-aff5>Foundation
for Alterative Social Development, Cuenca, Ecuador

f<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff6%23back-aff6>Health
Team National Coordinator, CARE Peru, Lima, Peru

g<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff7%23back-aff7>National
Health Council Secretariat, Ministry of Health, Lima, Peru

h<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff8%23back-aff8>WHO-Western
Pacific Regional Office, Manila, Philippines

i<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff9%23back-aff9>Centre
of Health Policies and Services, Bucharest, Romania

j<http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61781-X/fulltext#back-aff10%23back-aff10>Department
of Public Health, Victor Babes University of Medicine and
Pharmacy, Timisoara, Romania





Website: www.thelancet.com  [subscription required]





"…….60 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights laid the
foundations for the right to the highest attainable standard of health. This
right is central to the creation of equitable health systems. We identify
some of the right-to-health features of health systems, such as a
comprehensive national health plan, and propose 72 indicators that reflect
some of these features.



We collect globally processed data on these indicators for 194 countries and
national data for Ecuador, Mozambique, Peru, Romania, and Sweden. Globally
processed data were not available for 18 indicators for any country,
suggesting that organisations that obtain such data give insufficient
attention to the right-to-health features of health systems.



Where they are available, the indicators show where health systems need to
be improved to better realise the right to health. We provide
recommendations for governments, international bodies, civil-society
organisations, and other institutions and suggest that these indicators and
data, although not perfect, provide a basis for the monitoring of health
systems and the progressive realisation of the right to health.
Right-to-health features are not just good management, justice, or
humanitarianism, they are obligations under human-rights law…."





*Comment *Dec 10, 2008

*Right to health and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights*

Navanethem Pillay

The right to health is a fundamental part of our human rights and of our
understanding of a life in dignity. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights1 enshrines a vision that requires taking all human rights—civil,
political, economic, social, or cultural—as an indivisible and organic
whole, inseparable and interdependent, and all of equal importance.
Economic, social, and cultural rights cannot be fully achieved where civil
and political rights are curtailed, and civil and political rights cannot be
fully exercised where economic, social, and cultural rights are neglected.

* *

*Comment *Dec 10, 2008

*
**Why and how is health a human right?*

Amartya Sen


In doing a special issue on the right to health, The Lancet is helping to
draw attention to an extraordinarily important subject that does not get as
much attention as it deserves. There are understandable reasons why the
perspective of the right to health seems to many to be remote. First, there
is what we might call the legal question: how can health be a right since
there is no binding legislation demanding just that? Second, there is the
feasibility question: how can the state of being in good health be a right,
when there is no way of ensuring that everyone does have good health? Third,
there is the policy question: why think of health, rather than health care,
as a right, since health care is under the control of policy making, not the
actual state of health of the people?

*
Comment *Dec 10, 2008

*Rights-based approaches to improve people's health in Peru*

Ariel Frisancho, Jay Goulden


Peru is challenged by poverty, discrimination, and inequity, including
starkly different morbidity and mortality rates and a high prevalence of
avoidable illnesses and deaths in people who are poor, indigenous
populations, and excluded groups.1,2 Raising the importance of the right to
health as a core obligation to be fulfilled and implementing rights-based
approaches within health-sector development in Peru has proven helpful to
tackle these challenges. Rights-based approaches, and their principles of
inclusion, participation, and fulfilment of obligation, tackle the
underlying causes of poverty and disadvantage, and work in partnership with
a wide range of stakeholders to address these causes.

Comment

Dec 10, 2008

*Gender equality and the right to health*

Hedia Belhadj, Aminata Touré



Expanding access to health is fundamental to human security and human
rights. People who are poor daily face health-related insecurity, from food
shortages to limited access to drinkable water, physical violence, or
ignorance about disease prevention. In our globalised world, the
transnational flows of ideas, people, and new lifestyles, but also diseases,
have created new challenges for those who are already left behind in the
journey of human development. The vast majority of them are women.

[image: Close]



*Editorial *Dec 10, 2008

*The right to health: from rhetoric to reality*

The Lancet


Human Rights Day on Dec 10 marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). A year ago, in the run up to this
important milestone, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a campaign
that aimed to increase knowledge and awareness of human rights. During the
course of the year, many governments and educational, cultural, and human
rights institutions have reaffirmed their commitment to the values and
principles of the UDHR. The health sector has been strikingly silent, which
is tremendously disappointing given that the foundation for the right to
health is laid out in this historic document
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