PHM-Exch> Learning from others - in advancing the health of all

[Claudio Schuftan]

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


 *Learning from others

*

Amartya Sen
Thomas W Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and
Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

*The Lancet, Volume 377, Issue 9761, 2011

*

Website: http://bit.ly/giZNan

“…..Thailand has made huge use of what they call the National Health
Assembly, in which there are open discussions on what problems the public
faces in health care and in related fields and also on how they can be
removed. This has gone with the progress made in Thailand in introducing
universal public health care, and it has been nicely supplemented by
feedback from the people, with considerable gain in efficiency and reach. As
a functioning democracy, India can learn from others on how the public can
be engaged in advancing the health of all. There is a huge role for the
media and for political leadership, of all parties, in advancing this
important national cause, in making the best use of the facilities provided
by democracy.

 As it happens, some of the real progress that has happened in recent years
in India has come from public discussion—and agitation. This applies, for
example, to the delivery of cooked midday meals in schools, and selected
interventions in child development in preschool institutions. These new
changes have had positive effects, even though their use is uneven across
the country, and has to be expanded and improved.

 China does not yet have either of these important instruments of basic
health care, but they could be important for China too, since China—despite
its high average performance—does have identifiable gaps (the existence of
which has been pioneeringly studied by the China Development Research
Foundation). China too may have to learn from others to eliminate the
resisting pockets of deprivation. India faces, of course, a much larger
task.

 Learning from other countries remains as important today as it was in Yi
Jing's time, almost 1400 years ago………”




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