Africa

New PHM blog online: AfrikaR2H

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IPHU participants from the 'Africa Group’ have agreed that in order to strengthen the movement, they would each need to first start by working locally, strengthening the PHM activities in their respective countries, Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. They commited to support each other in developing and strengthening the PHM in each of their countries as they work towards an Africa-wide People’s Health Movement.

Official launch of the RTHHC Assessment in Benin

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As part of the ongoing Global Right to Health and Health Care Campaign, the campaign was launched in Benin on 1st March 2008 in Abomey Calavi.

Health for all now, demand marchers

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Community organisations, trade unions and religious groups on Saturday banded together to try to force the government to improve the poor state of South Africa's health system.

Sporting placards reading "SA Health Crisis is bigger than Manto vs Routledge", "Public Health before Private Wealth" and "Health for all NOW", hundreds of people marched through Site C, Khayelitsha, to mark the launch of the People's Health Movement's Right to Health Campaign.

People's health movement (South Africa) supports the public sector's action

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The South African Chapter of the People's Health Movement (PHM) strongly supports the demand by public sector health workers (and workers in other public sectors) for a 12% wage increase. While we urge all parties to respect essential services, we also support industrial action if negotiations fail. In this regard we believe that the largest threat to essential services comes primarily not from the threat of industrial action but from the lack of official respect for, and the poor working conditions of, the workers that render them.

People’s Health in Darfur – Dependent communities

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The author wrote this article after having worked for six months as a humanitarian worker in the war-torn region of Darfur, Sudan. At present the international community is debating a possible UN intervention in Sudan. Humanitarian intervention itself, although valid in complex emergencies, has serious side effects and can even leave the community fully dependent on international aid. The article promotes ‘appropriate’ intervention with a focus on individual communities. Besides assisting the affected individuals, communities must be supported in claiming their right to health as part of a larger human rights approach, holding the duty bearers accountable for the violated and neglected health determinants.

Intellectual property rules suit the wealthy

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Recent media focus on intellectual property rules has led many to believe that the entire debate centers around the issues of piracy of films, videos and DVDs. There is a constant refrain that a watertight regime of intellectual property rules is essential to protect the rights of those who devised, developed and produced innovative goods, be it art or health cures.

Zambia scraps healthcare fees for poor rural people

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The government of Zambia last week introduced free health care in rural areas. It scrapped the user fees that had made health care largely inaccessible to millions of people living below the poverty line in one of Africa’s poorest countries.

Right to Health Campaign in South Africa

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PHM would like to invite civil society organizations, interested individuals and groups to participate in discussing the possibility of hosting such a campaign in South Africa. It would also contribute to building civil society for the Third People’s Health Assembly, planned for 2010 at an African venue (to be determined). This edition of Critical Health Perspectives sketches the background to the campaign and some of the thinking behind it.

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