Dr. Violeta Menjivar, Member of Parliament, El Salvador - Addresses - People's Health Assembly - December 2000
Dr. Violeta Menjivar, Member of Parliament, El Salvador.
President of the Health and Social Welfare Commission of the National Assembly.
Former Freedom fighter.
Distinguished woman and men, participants in the People’s Health Assembly, as a guest and representative from Latin America, I wish to express a warm and optimistic greeting to this Assembly. The fact that the Assembly is being held fills us with sentiments of hope and solidarity and strength in our struggle for health.
The People’s Health Assembly shows us the path that must be taken by our marginalized and oppressed communities where the majority of our poor people do not enjoy even the most elemental of human rights such as the right to health.
This assembly and its guidelines constitute one of the principal instruments for the organization of a people’s movement to further a genuine concept of globalisation counteracting the actual concept which is leading us on a mistaken path where only the strongest are benefiting from it. That globalisation, lead by the large international financial institutions and the transnational corporations and supported by local governments, has not touched or changed the quality of life, nor has it improved the health of millions of inhabitants of this planet. On the contrary it is rapidly driving humanity toward greater poverty and misery, and with that has produced even greater inequities in terms of the right to health of our people.
In our countries we must resist health care reforms that represent foreign interests and are imposed upon us like a straight jacket. Our aspiration is to make transformation in health that is in harmony with our national and cultural identities. These reforms ought to be the product of the adequate redistribution of wealth and income, where there is an harmonious combination between successful community and local experiences with simple, sustainable technologies, but also combined with modern technology where the finding of scientific research in order to improve health.
It is for this reason that we call upon this assembly to globalise solidarity with the marginalized, to globalise our critical vision of the processes of health care reform that are being implemented, to globalise our experiences, and more fundamentally our proposals.
Let us make this assembly an uncontrollable current of human solidarity, to move in a positive way towards a new consciousness and willingness until there is equity in health for our people.
We are thankful that this country Bangladesh and its people have received us here. We are happy to be among you and to remember our common commitment to a vision of solidarity among people.
Thank you.
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