PHM-Exch> Food for a thought to be dreamed every night

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 303**

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*HEALTH: NOT CHARITY, NOT MERCHANDISE: A HUMAN RIGHT.  *(part 2 of 2)**

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*Nowadays, public health and the right to health have come to mean too many
things to different people.*



Public health is a specialty in which health practitioners should have to
turn to past proven achievements for enlightenment. But do they? When
health services become a merchandise they apply to its practice the laws of
the market, not the principles of public health. Health thus starts with
its market price and only eventually travels backwards to public health.
So, when profitability is the name of the game, too many human rights-based
health concerns are relegated to the back burner.


For us human rights activists, by treating health as a human right, we
acknowledge the need for a strong social commitment to good health. There
are few things as important as that in the contemporary world. The idea of
human rights serves not as a “child of law”, but more as a “parent of law”
in guiding needed ad-hoc legislation and regulations. A human rights focus
serves as a parent not only of law, but also of many other ways of
advancing the cause of that right. There are political, social, economic,
scientific, and cultural actions that we need to take to advance the cause
of (good) health for all. (A. Sen)


To read the full Reader, go to

http://wp.me/plAxa-1El

Claudio
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