Health should be seen as a human right, global campaign says

Health should be seen as a human right, campaign says

London

Sophie Arie

A campaign backed by politicians, pop stars, and medical and religious leaders was launched last week to urge the world to recognise health as a human right on a par with the right to a fair trial or to freedom of expression.

“It is time for the world to come to its senses and call health a human right,” said Mary Robinson, the former United Nations high commissioner for human rights, at a seminar hosted by the British Medical Association last Friday.

Paul Hunt, the UN special rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, said, “Almost every state on the planet has voluntarily signed one or more human rights treaties that has expressly recognised the right to health. And yet at the highest levels of government the right to health is not taken seriously.”

Some 30 000 children under the age of 5 years die every day from preventable diseases or hunger, said Mrs Robinson, now president of Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative. One billion people—a fifth of the world’s population—lack access to safe water, and every minute a woman dies giving birth.

“That’s why when we talk about poverty we have to talk about health,” she said. “World leaders who genuinely want to tackle the problems of poverty in Africa must put health at the top of the agenda.”

Mrs Robinson and Mr Hunt are spearheading a campaign, also supported by the rock singer Bono and former US presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, to raise awareness at all levels of people’s right to health.

They hope, in coming months, to remind world leaders of their commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says, in article 25, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including medical care.”

And as they take their campaign around the world they plan, using their website (www.realizingrights.org), to gather millions of signatures supporting their call to action.

The campaign stresses that governments need only provide the most basic things—clean water and simple food—to start to reduce the “unacceptable” gap in health between the world’s richest people, who can expect to live to almost 80, and the poorest, who die on average before the age of 40.

“To give people the right to health is going to cost a lot of money,” admitted David de Ferranti, senior fellow of the UN Foundation, a charity that works with the UN to promote its causes. “But it is financially affordable. It’s feasible.”

He has calculated that the cost of giving people access to the highest attainable standard of health will cost around $75bn a year, which is less than 0.25% of the global gross domestic product and less than 10% of the world’s military expenditure. “If countries are willing to spend that then we can do it,” he said.

Mrs Robinson pointed out that making health a priority financially and politically would be a long term investment worldwide: “It will be the biggest boost for the economies of poorest countries in the world. The link between health and development is absolutely clear.”