New People’s Charter for Health adopted at PHA 2000 -
INJUSTICE IS THE WORLD'S GREATEST HEALTH PROBLEM !
- Press Releases
PRESS RELEASE - December 8,
2000
New People’s Charter for Health adopted at PHA 2000
INJUSTICE IS THE WORLD'S GREATEST HEALTH PROBLEM !
A new vision of `Health for All’ based on abolition of all political, social and
economic inequalities was adopted unanimously by hundreds of delegates from around the
globe at the first ever People’s Health Assembly here on Friday.
To cries of `Health for All- Now !’ the PHA 2000 participants from over 92 countries
endorsed a new People’s Charter for Health framed after lengthy debates, discussions
and participation from people from all walks of life from around the world.
“Inequality, poverty, exploitation, violence and injustice are at the root of
ill-health and the deaths of poor and marginalised people” declares the new Charter
calling upon the people of the world to build popular movements to pressure governments to
recognise Health as a fundamental human right.
`Health for All’, it says “means that powerful interests have to be challenged,
that globalisation has to be opposed, and that political economic priorities have to be
drastically changed.”
“ Illness and death every day anger us. Not because
there are people who get sick or because there are people who die. We are angry because
many illnesses and deaths have their roots in the economic and social problems that are
imposed on us” says a voice from Central America quoted in the Charter.
The new Charter also calls for a reiteration of the demands for a universal, comprehensive
Primary Health Care envisioned in the 1978 Alma Ata declaration as the basis for
formulating policies related to health. ''Governments have a fundamental responsibility to
ensure universal access to quality health care, education and other social services
according to the people's needs, not according to their ability to pay,'' the charter laid
down as a basic principle.
The new People’s Charter for Health adopted at PHA 2000 is in some ways a
continuation of the Alma Ata declaration but differs significantly in its emphasis that
political, social and economic transformation are basic pre-requisites for ensuring Health
for All. The new Charter also clearly refers to the role of environmental issues that have
an impact on public health.
Leading a list of demands set out by the charter is one that calls for ''transformation of
the global trading system so that it ceases to violate social, environmental, economic and
health rights of people and begins to discriminate positively in favour of countries of
the South.''
The Charter also demands the cancellation of Third World debt, the radical transformation
of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and the effective regulation of
Transnational Corporations. Very significantly the Charter calls upon the people of the
world to `challenge growth-centered economic theories and replace them with alternatives
that create humane and sustainable societies’.
The organizers of the PHA 2000 plan to include representatives of all major regions around
the world within their consultative group to carry on with the post-PHA 2000 activities.
These activities will include, among other things, campaigns to frame and adopt Health
Charters at the national and local levels addressing specific public health issues.
