[pf] Fw: [corp-focus] The People's Health

by Kaleopono

20 December 2000 05:29 UTC

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Weissman" <rob@milan.essential.org>
To: <corp-focus@venice.essential.org>
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2000 8:42 AM
Subject: [corp-focus] The People's Health


> The People's Health
> By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>
> Savar, Bangladesh -- More than two decades ago, the nations of the world
> issued a call for "Health for all the people of the world by the year
> 2000," in the Alma Alta Declaration, the product of a World Health
> Organization-UNICEF conference.
>
> In 1978, at the time of the Declaration, that goal seemed achievable.
> There was serious talk of a New International Economic Order, to begin to
> remedy the wealth and technology gap between the global North and South.
> Primary healthcare was held "the key to attaining th[e] target" of health
> for all.
>
> Now, with 2000 upon us, it is evident that the world failed to turn the
> vision into reality.
>
> Earlier this month, approximately 1,500 public health activists from 93
> countries gathered at the spirited and historic People's Health Assembly
> (PHA) in Bangladesh to assess this state of affairs, and to map the way
> forward so that health for all is in fact achieved.
>
> The emerging PHA diagnosis, which focused primarily on healthcare failures
> in developing countries, was multifaceted: Governments have failed to
> invest sufficient resources and empower localities to assure adequate
> nutrition, clean water, maternal and child health care and other
> components of primary health care. This governmental failure is rooted in
> many internal problems, but especially reflects the budgetary and policy
> squeeze imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and
> foreign debt repayments, as well as the World Trade Organization.
> Meanwhile, multinational corporations are pushing a privatization agenda
> for healthcare which removes control of crucial health decisions and
> delivery systems from the public sphere, where it is subject to popular
> influence, and often removes access to healthcare altogether from poor
> people.
>
> The delegates had an opportunity to passionately denounce the institutions
> of corporate globalization when a World Bank representative attended a
> session labeled "The World Bank Faces the People." Led by the Indian
> delegation, PHA attendees hooted and booed the Bank, chanting "Down, Down,
> World Bank, Down Down." They spoke with raw emotion of Bank projects which
> have displaced people from longstanding communities, destabilizing both
> societies and public health, and of Bank lending programs that pushed
> national healthcare systems in the direction of a corporate-dominated
> model.
>
> Primary healthcare remains a top priority, the PHA concluded, but it was
> unlikely to be achieved broadly in the absence of fundamental
> transformations in the global political economy.
>
> A "People's Charter for Health" issued by the PHA (see
> http://www.pha2000.org/pch8Dec.htm) asserted that health is a human right
> and that "health and human rights should prevail over economic and
> political concerns," and it called for the provision of "universal and
> comprehensive primary health care, irrespective of people's ability to
> pay."
>
> But the Charter also called for the cancellation of the Third World debt,
> major changes at the IMF, World Bank and WTO, effective regulation to
> control the activities of multinational corporations and controls on
> speculative international capital flows. It also includes provisions on
> the environment, war and violence.
>
> The imperative of achieving macro-level transformations did not depress
> the delegates. There were more community health workers than professional
> policy advocates at the conference, and delegates from developing
> countries vastly outnumbered those from industrialized nations.
>
> These delegates were able to relate their own successes to illustrate what
> can be achieved, despite enormous obstacles, with determination and
> organization.
>
> A. Chintamani, a health worker from a low caste in India, explained how
> she learned to wear shoes to prevent hookworm -- despite an expectation
> that people in her caste would go barefooted -- and then became empowered
> to deliver care even to upper caste persons, who were forced to turn to
> her, because she offered the best available care.
>
> Delegates from Cuba related the island's stunning public health
> achievements -- with many national health indicators, such as infant
> mortality levels, comparable to those in the United States -- in the face
> of the U.S. trade embargo. The international audience cheered long and
> loud for the Cuban delegates -- in appreciation of Cuba's accomplishments
> and in solidarity for its resistance to U.S. aggression.
>
> Most heartening, perhaps, was the example provided by the PHA hosts. The
> meeting was held on the campus of Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK), a Bangladesh
> NGO that has constructed a hospital, university and generic drug factory.
> Putting the concept of primary healthcare into effect, GK has trained
> countless health workers -- mostly women -- to raise health standards in
> surrounding villages. It leads the way in supplying care in the wake of
> floods and other national emergencies in Bangladesh. GK pharmaceuticals,
> and its support for Bangladesh's progressive national drug program --
> which has weathered relentless attacks from multinational drug firms --
> have made essential medicines available to consumers throughout the
> country.
>
> What GK and other success stories conveyed at the PHA reveal is that it is
> not for lack of resources or knowledge that the world has failed to
> deliver on the promise of the Alma Alta declaration.
>
> What is lacking is political will, from the village to international
> level.
>
> "While governments have the primary responsibility for promoting a more
> equitable approach to health and human rights," the People's Health
> Charter concludes, it will require people's organizations to force them to
> meet this responsibility.
>
>
> Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
> Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
> Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
> Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common
> Courage Press, 1999).
>
> (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>
> _______________________________________________
>
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