RGH Video Blog – The Right to Health
Click here to download General Comment 14
Hello and welcome to the Global Health Video Class. My name is Dr. Elvira Beracochea and I am the president and CEO of Realizing Global Health. We are a global health consultant company where we really help realize the right to health of everybody. We do this by creating self-reliant, sustainable health systems that meet the quality standards for every patient everywhere every day. Today, I want to talk about 2015 as the year that we really need to embrace the rights-based approaches to public health.
By rights-based approaches it means that we are looking at the international legislation starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then, looking at another very important document I want to talk about today: the Right to Health. The Right to Health is defined in General Comment 14. General Comment 14 is a very simple document but it has everything that we need. If we just followed what it says in this document- which is just about 15 pages long- we will really advance and make huge strides in global health. This is because General Comment 14 is the product of many years’ consensus and agreement of what it will take to realize global health. The right to the highest attainable standard of healthcare for everyone everywhere every day.
So let’s talk about the right to health and how donors and foundations help to advance how we live on this planet. There are so many people who are so generous and want to help. Now we have the knowledge and technology to really make sure that we can save lives. There are millions of preventable deaths that can be prevented if we implement what is written in General Comment 14 to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 12). If we follow what is here, we can really make a big impact.
I encourage you to read this document and think about how you can implement this in your organization and your programs. One of the things I want you to consider is: “How can my policies, and the policies in the country where we work, be strengthened by this?” “How can I look at how we monitor and evaluate our programs by looking at that from the perspective of General Comment 14?” “How can we look at how we regulate and how we make sure that everybody that is doing the work of our organization is really contributing to advance the human rights agenda?” When you coordinate with other partners, when you work with other partners, how can you help them become of aware of the International Declaration of Human Rights?
How can you help them understand more about General Comment 14? What I recommend you all do this week is print a copy of General Comment 14 because I believe it is a very important document that should be always on your desk. Every time I read it, I discover an important aspect that I can apply in my work.
For the last ten years or so, I have focused so much of my work on advancing the Right to Health, the Human Rights Agenda, through global health. I believe that the more people do that, the better we are going to advance global health. So keep thinking about you can apply this in your organization and how you can advance the respect, the fulfillment and the protection of the Right to Health as defined here. So I suggest that you print the document, hold a meeting with your team and then read it together, line by line. Then agree what are your goals for this year? What will you achieve that will advance the Right to Health for everyone everywhere every day?
We are going to continue talking more about rights-based approaches to global health next time. So stay tuned! See you next time!
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