The Right To Health Care: A Nonkilling Viewer, by Francisco Gomes de Matos
Although the term health care entered written English from 1940 on, the idea of providing services for the maintenance or restoration of health has an older history. Thus, in 1883 Germany became the first country to have a health system. Universal concern about that type of human right is expressed in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: "The human right to health care guarantees the creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness".
Granted the eloquence of such statement, the sad truth is that the universal implementation of that right is still a most challenging goal, as an Internet search will show. Significantly, the right to health care is mentioned in several national constitutions but the road from theory to application may have detours, especially of an economic, often political nature. (cf. the current situation in the U.S., where the Obama administration is struggling to turn the right to health care into a shared public service).
As in other texts focused on Human Rights written for the CGNK website, this piece will reflect a Nonkilling approach. In such spirit, the rather close links of the right to health care to the fundamental right to LIFE and to living are emphasized. The listing below reflects the author’s brainstorming .Readers are asked to add to the examples, by considering their local-national contexts. In contributing to the list, do ask yourself:
Has the application of the right to health care contributed to the promotion/protection of individual/community health, social well being, and dignity? If so, how and to what extent? What steps could be taken to further the implementation of that right in my community? Also related to such vital right is the right to be minimally knowledgeable about health and health care. Such right, now emerging, could be called the right to health literacy. May this piece also draw attention to the need for concentrated public attention to this newer type of literacy.
List I - The right to health care is tragically violated when:
a person dies because of malpractice (improper or negligent action)
a person’s health is impaired because of use of inadequately prescribed medication
a person was not provided ambulance service, although requested
a person was not admitted to the emergency unit in a hospital or clinic, for lack of space therein
Please add to this list and reflect on the loss of precious lives and on what could have been done to prevent such everyday tragedies
List II - The right to health care is violated when
a person is not treated compassionately
a person is not told about the nature-gravity of his or her condition. It is the patient’s right to be informed, in layperson’s language.
a person does not have access to a free health care clinic, because of economic condition (not having money to pay for transportation to that place)
a person is not given the needed prescribed medicine (for a chronic disease, for instance) by a local public health unit, because of the lack of such medication or due to an administrative delay in requesting such indispensable medicine from a health agency elsewhere
a person is not given a vaccine, in a national vaccination campaign, because of insufficient supply of such preparation
a person is not advised (by other citizens) of the risks involved in self-medicating
a person is not given constitutional protection for the right to health care
When we read about people undergoing surgery without the use of anaesthesia, we are shocked and appalled, but what can be done to remedy, to avoid such potentially tragic situations to happen, globally ?
May this plea for the globalization of the right to health care also reflect the universal need for Social-Preventive Medicine initiatives to be generously supported by public and private organizations so as to fulfil its deeply humanizing role for the Good of Humankind’s Health.
