PHM-Exch> Fwd: [jsadiscuss] Dr Amit Sengupta's obituary in today's Lancet

Fri Jan 4 03:17:19 PST 2019

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From: Anant Bhan <dranantbhan at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jan 4, 2019 at 4:02 PM
Subject: [jsadiscuss] Dr Amit Sengupta's obituary in today's Lancet
To: jsadiscuss <jsadiscuss at googlegroups.com>

OBITUARY| VOLUME 393, ISSUE 10166
<https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/vol393no10166/PIIS0140-6736(18)X0056-7>
, P24, JANUARY 05, 2019

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Amit Sengupta

   - Andrew Green
   <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)33174-X/fulltext#>

Published:January 05, 2019DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)33174-X
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Copyright © 2019 Sarojini Nadimpally
Global health activist and founding member of the People's Health Movement.
Born in Kolkata, India, on July 5, 1958, he died in a swimming accident in
Goa, India, on Nov 28, 2018, aged 60 years.
>From the time he helped co-found the People's Health Movement (PHM) in
2000, Amit Sengupta was actively involved in many of the group's
activities. That included assisting with the Global Health Watch—an
alternative to the World Health Report—that combines academic contributions
and case studies to present a view of global health from a social justice
perspective. By the start of the third edition in 2011, Sengupta had taken
over as editor. His work on the third, fourth, and fifth editions of the
Global Health Watch were among the myriad examples of his ceaseless efforts
to draw attention to global health inequities and to push for change.
“Without Amit, we cannot repeat this model…To manage to have a very high
standard product with mostly no money”, said Hani Serag, who was then PHM's
global coordinator and is now a member of PHM's Global Steering Council and
a research fellow at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston,
TX, USA. “Amit was an excellent writer. He had the ability to write sharp
analysis. And he had skills in diplomacy and negotiation, while still being
very militant on his political stand”, Serag said.
Sengupta's activism began as a student at the University of
Delhi-affiliated Maulana Azad Medical College in the late 1970s and early
1980s. He graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.
Prabir Purkayastha, an engineer and one of the founding members of the
Delhi Science Forum, said he was eager to recruit Sengupta to join their
efforts, which draw attention to the social and political implications of
science and technology. “As a student, he had rigour, passion, was
articulate, and he could write”, Purkayastha said. Sengupta joined the
forum and went on to follow a career in activism.
Speaking earlier this year at the People's Health Assembly in Savar,
Bangladesh, which he helped to organise, Sengupta explained his commitment.
“The struggle for health is a struggle for a more caring world. And I think
that we are here to build a more caring world.” His early activism focused
on drug policy, including advocacy around patent regulations and trade
policies that would make drugs more affordable. Yogesh Jain, a public
health physician and leader in the People's Health Support Group, first met
Sengupta during this period. “I saw rare insights”, Jain said. “It was
unusual for a physician to possess such knowledge—to understand those
issues and to highlight them in popular media.” Sengupta was also an expert
in health systems, regularly critiquing universal health coverage in favour
of a single, tax-payer funded public health system that offered universal
and free access. “He had an enormous breadth of knowledge”, said David
Sanders, who worked closely with Sengupta as a Steering Committee Member of
PHM. “You could start to talk about some aspect of health care and Amit
would know about it.”
Sengupta was a founding member of both the global PHM, founded in 2000, and
India's PHM chapter—Jan Swasthya Abhiyan—that was officially formed the
following year. “He gave [Jan Swasthya Abhiyan] the intellectual and
physical leadership”, Purkayastha said. “He was also instrumental in
getting everyone together.” Sengupta also served as the associate global
coordinator of the international PHM and, in addition to editing the Global
Health Watch, was instrumental in coordinating the WHO Watch. Under his
guidance, activists would learn to quickly analyse resolutions emerging
from the World Health Assembly and WHO executive board meetings and
circulate their feedback to member states.
“We have to take up what Amit believed in and talk about it more
concertedly”, said Sarojini Nadimpally, a Delhi-based activist and founder
of the Sama Resource Group for Women and Health. “And not only sit and
talk, but take action. The times are very challenging. In these times,
missing him is a huge blow to the global People's Health Movement.”
“I don't think we'll be able to find a replacement for him”, said Mohan
Rao, who recently retired as a professor at the Centre for Social Medicine
and Community Health at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. “But what is
on the horizon is all the groups that came together in this movement will
continue to be inspired by him.” Sengupta is survived by his wife, Tripta
Narang, and his son, Arijit.
Article InfoPublication History
Published: 05 January 2019
IDENTIFICATION

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)33174-X
Copyright
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirectAccess this article on ScienceDirec
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067361833174X>

-- 
Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) is the Indian Chapter of the People's Health
Movement. JSA brings together organisations and individuals in India
working to promote health equity across all population groups. Also visit
our website: www.phmindia.org
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