PHM-Exch> [PHM NEWS] Resending: A Short-film Trilogy produced by Peoples Health Movement (PHM) with support from PMAC 2022

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Sulakshana Nandi <sulakshana at phmovement.org>\

The People's Health Movement has developed three short films with support
from the Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2022. We organised a launch event
earlier this week that went off very well with over 170 participants. We
have received a lot of positive feedback and a request for links to the
videos.

The videos contain voices and experiences from Guatemala, Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Philippines, India and more. Community health workers from India,
Philippines and Malawi, Jayati Ghosh, Ana Quiros, Walden Bello,
Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Agnes Binagwaho, Tim Jackson, Eduardo Espinoza, Hugo
Icu, Delen De La Paz, Sarojini N, Ronald Labonte and many others from PHM
have been interviewed.

Please find below brief introductions and youtube links to the three
videos. Feel free to circulate and use these videos widely.

with best wishes

Fran and Sulakshana

*The World We Want: Actions Towards a Sustainable, Fairer, and Healthier
Society*

*A Short-film Trilogy, produced by People’s Health Movement (PHM),
supported by Prince Mahidol Award Conference, 2022*

*I.       Building Equitable Health Systems:*

The first film records the voices of community health workers and health
care professionals and health rights activists from across the globe, on
the learning’s from the COVID pandemic for the design of healthcare
systems. One of the main reasons behind the current crisis in healthcare
has been the failure of the mainstream global community to call for and
provide assistance to strengthening public sector service delivery. This
has been made more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic.



In this video we analyse the implications of chronic public underinvestment
in the public health sector, the active promotion of the for-profit private
sector and accelerated commercialization of healthcare, particularly for
those face historical marginalization and who bore the brunt of exposure,
infection, morbidity and death due to COVID.



The testimonies reiterate the need for community-centred health services
where equity and solidarity are central principles. Building on PHM’s
vision for Health For All, we discuss alternatives to the dominant
market-oriented discourse and privatization of healthcare. We present
lessons, principles and strategies for building strong and equitable
public/government health systems that promote social justice and human
rights and put people over profit.



Building back better, requires us to conceptualize all of healthcare, and
not only vaccines, as a global public good - something we never will be
able to expect from the current market based models of healthcare.



Webcast I: https://youtu.be/otHKAR3mmPE

*II.      Rethinking the SDGs.… in the Pandemic Aftermath…*

The second film shines a spotlight on the Sustainable Development Goals -
in what political economic context and what unequal power relations they
arose and have continued to perpetuate. This video contains perspectives
from Professor Anne-Emmanual Birn, University of Toronto who is also a PHM
activist in Canada, Professor Agnes Binagwato Vice Chancellor of the
University of Global Health Equity, Dr. Delen de la Paz a PHM activist from
the Philippines, Dr. Hugo Icu PHM, Guatemala and Dr. Sarojini Nadimpally,
SAMA and PHM India. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated
existing inequities both within countries and between countries. Its impact
threatens progress on the SDGs. During the pandemic COP26 was held but made
little progress in establishing a sustainable base for the planet and in
curbing the production of carbon.  The multiple crises faced are out of
control climate change, rapidly growing inequities, rampant capitalist
behaviour by governments and Transnational Corporations.  While the SDGs
were an improvement on their predecessor by foregrounding equity, it has
been obvious that the aims and aspirations they represent cannot be
achieved in the current paradigm. They also do not deal with the central
contradiction of advocating more economic growth and with it consumption
that will make the pressures on our planet greater. This contradiction
existed before Covid-19 and now is more evident. Nations - particularly of
the majority world or Global South - must claim their power and exercise
their imaginations, learning from each other where needed and charting
their own course. We must also rethink the current global economic model
within which we operate - using models like Buen Vivir and Gross National
Happiness and strategies like dismantling of extractive industrial power,
tax justice and economic redistribution, as well as a focus on planetary
well being.

Webcast II: https://youtu.be/6pPA8w2yJQc

*III.    Post-Pandemic Global Economics- Re-structure, Reform or just
Re-vitalize*

The third film delves into the hegemonic, extractive and grossly unequal
economic model, which prevails today. It underscores the need for a
transformative shift that would avoid unsustainable and inequitable
consumption of finite ecological resources and redistribute power, wealth,
and bring in a new economic order premised on fairness and justice that
would ensure human survival. When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, it
quickly collapsed global supply chains and depressed economic activity
worldwide. National economies that were still struggling in the aftermath
of the 2008 global financial crisis were thrown in disarray. Almost
immediately there was talk of the need for a post-COVID ‘great reset’, of
governments committing to ‘build back better’ and to ensure a ‘green
recovery’. Although pandemic-weary people might crave for what they
consider to be a return to normalcy, our economic policies cannot simply
default to a business-as-usual. The pre-pandemic economy was already
creating massive wealth inequalities, accelerating climate change, and
fomenting mass migrations of people fleeing poverty, drought, or conflict;
all of which only worsened with the pandemic.

Are any of the new policy playbooks arising from the economic chaos of the
pandemic sufficient to ensure equity in people’s access to the resources
needed for health? Or are more radical measures needed to improve health
equity globally while ensuring ecosystem sustainability? Are such eco-just
measures even compatible with capitalism, however reformed this centuries’
old system may become? These are some of the questions Ronald Labonte put
to three economists who have been thinking critically about such issues for
some time: Tim Jackson, Walden Bello, and Jayati Ghosh. Two points they
make abundantly clear:

1) We do not need the level or form of economic growth that brought us
COVID-19.

2) We do need a different vision of the role of governments in ensuring
that our economies work to improve the health and well-being of all, and to
protect our environmental commons.

They explain this in the third webcast on “post-pandemic global economics”

Webcast III: https://youtu.be/DosIdxMob_0
--
Website: https://phmovement.org
Twitter: @PHMglobal
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