'Don’t put profits before people’ says PHA -
Fight globalisation of health industry - Press Releases
PRESS RELEASE - December 4,
2000
`Don’t put profits before people’ says PHA
Fight globalisation of health industry
The People’s Health Assembly got off to a rousing start with a call for the
people’s health movement to evolve a clear strategy to fight the negative impact of
globalisation on health systems around the world.
At the inaugural session of the five day international meet Mr Qasem
Chowdhury,
coordinator of the PHA Secretariat, said that `Health for All’ should be a major part
of the international development agenda. There was need he said to build an integrated
movement for people-centred healthcare as opposed to the profit-driven global health
industry.
In a special message read out to the Assembly the Prime Minister of Mozambique, Dr Pascoal
Mocumbi, said that in his country where 70 percent of the population lived below the
absolute poverty line the government had the responsibility of guaranteeing access to
health care. “Community must be a participatory actor in the health system that is
designed for it and directed towards it” his statement said.
Mr N.H.Antia from India who chaired the inaugural session said that we are meeting at a
time when greed has reached its limits and the pendulum has started to swing. “The
new process of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation, have told the death knell
of Health for All, and it would also be the death knell of the planet if we don’t
take adequate corrective measures at this stage” he added. Mr Antia hoped that
discussions emerging from the Assembly woud give a new dimension of thinking on the
problems of health, that “we no longer be cowed down by a few people who have
converted sickness into a business and industry”.
Mr Govinda Pillay, a four-time member of the Legislative Assembly in the southern Indian
state of Kerala pointed out that though his state was considered poor in terms traditional
economic indicators such as per capita income and industrial investments, is yet the
richest state in India in social development indicators such as healthcare and education.
“We achieved this not by conventional methods but through mobilisation of the masses
at the grassroot level” he explained. The gains of the `Kerala model’, which has
been praised throughout the world however was under threat he said from cuts in subsidies
for services such as healthcare under pressure from international funding agencies.
Mr Prasad Misra, Health Minister of the northern Indian Orissa state, suggested countries
like India, which have a long indigenous medicine tradition like Ayurveda, must give
emphasis to developing these systems. He argued that these traditional medicines would be
more affordable to the poor people.
James Orbinski of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without
Borders) said that for PHA 2000 to be the beginning of a genuine global movement for
primary healthcare it needs a clear vision,, sense of action and voice. “ Today we
substitute charity for duty” he said “This is simply not good enough” NGOs
he said have accepted this charity and not fought hard enough for change.
The PHA-2000 inaugural session also heard the testimonies of grass-roots people from
Tanzania, Ecuador, Bangladesh and the United Kingdom about the problems that ordinary
people go through due to the dehumanisation of health systems worldwide.
