Published 6 July 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2737
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b2737

News

Health care in poor countries must be defended against privatisation, Oxfam says

Peter Moszynski

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The UK charity Oxfam has joined with the public services union UNISON to demand that free public health care in poor countries must not become a "casualty of privatisation."

Their campaign was launched on 1 July, with the delivery by ambulance of a "prescription for immediate action" to the Department for International Development. The message was received by Mike Foster, junior minister for international development.

The campaign calls on the UK government to act as a "champion for health care for all" by encouraging investment by the World Bank and major international donors in free public health services in developing countries, to redress the shortage of 4.25 million healthcare professionals in these countries, and to stop promoting "risky and ineffective private healthcare services."

Dave Prentis, UNISON’s general secretary, said, "We have a duty to make sure that every penny in aid goes into delivering health care to people in the . . . [Full text of this article]


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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Heath care in poor countries should be improved first, and ownership formats debated second
Dominic D Montagu
bmj.com, 7 Jul 2009 [Full text]
No cost healthcare for the poor, shibboleths should not detract from reality
Tracey Perez Koehlmoos
bmj.com, 8 Jul 2009 [Full text]
Oxfam campaign is naïve, shallow, unsupported by evidence, and colonial
Richard Smith
bmj.com, 10 Jul 2009 [Full text]
Increase access to health services by the poor, but don’t blame “privatisation” or export British prescriptions to developing countries
David H Peters, et al.
bmj.com, 12 Jul 2009 [Full text]
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