The Hindu supports free, universal healthcare access

The Hindu carried a leader on April 6, calling upon people to press for comprehensive free, universal access to healthcare. Read it in full here.

At a time when the strong winds of neo-liberal policies is sweeping the health care sector along with others, such a call helps the public focus its attention on an area of great importance.

There were two letters published on April 7 in The Hindu. One of them said, “The editorial “Financing health (April 6)” should serve as an eye-opener to both the Congress and the BJP, which are duping the electorate by promising vote-catching sops…” (although the writer was poorly informed and therefore critical of free rice and wheat to BPL families).  Such comments only demonstrate the failure of the public to make the connection between food access, adequate nutrition and health.

On April 3, The Hindu carried an editorial highlighting the potential of using free and open source software in creating electronic health records, which would help map disease burdens accurately, and help share data across vast spaces and areas of expertise.

Ethics dilemmas at Harvard Medical School

The Hindu recently carried an article on ethics issues involving faculty at Harvard Medical School.  The question of keeping clear distance from the pharmaceutical lobby is discussed.

Health insurance: Socialistic influences in US

Although international issues appeared to be paramount in the early phase of the US Presidential race, the collapse of the American financial greats has turned attention to bread and butter issues, including healthcare.

Paul Krugman’s concise and clear analysis of the positions taken by the nominees, Barack Obama and John McCain points to the enfeebling health effects of private sector health insurance. Read it here. It has now become clear that US Health Insurance companies will refuse cover to those with pre-existing illnesses, and the McCain camp wants to strengthen their hands by slashing protections available under employer-funded insurance. Obama is clearly on the side of a stronger state-supported system, and very importantly, against weakening the already weak system in America.

Predictably, the Wall Street Journal came out on the side of the insurance companies in this Op-Ed. A glance at the public discussion on the WSJ position (at the end of the same article), shows that the public is fiercely against McCain and his debilitating proposals. The sleight of hand of the Republican camp is exposed by the nominee’s proposal to provide tax credits (that won’t pay in full for a family’s private insurance, requiring out-of-pocket expense) but removing incentives for employer-funded health insurance. Even worse, it will shrink the scope of state-insured medical care which is available for emergencies and those over 65. When this is achieved, the insurance companies can set even stricter terms for individuals (who cannot get insurance from their employers) or simply refuse insurance! 

The message from all this should come through clearly for the myopic Indian middle classes, who are clamouring for corporatised healthcare and private health insurance, as if that will solve all the problems of our admittedly poor health care delivery system. It should also lead to a review of the working of the entire health insurance industry in India by the UPA, if it aspires for another term.  Of course, the supreme tragedy is that the UPA Government of Manmohan Singh has a Health Minister who is a votary of private health insurance and for-profit health care. 

/ga

Right to Healthcare in India

A Fund-starved healthcare system is the result of a lack of will on the government’s part. This despite the UPA government’s promise to provide two to three percent of GDP to public healthcare. Ravi Duggal reminds the powers-that-be of broken promises. Excerpts from a study:

To establish right to healthcare certain first essential steps will be compulsory:

• Equating directive principles with fundamental rights through a constitutional amendment
• Incorporating a National Health Act (similar to Canada Health Act for example) which will organise the present healthcare system under a common umbrella organisation as a public-private mix governed by an autonomous national health authority which will also be responsible for bringing together all resources under a single-payer mechanism
• Generating a political commitment through consensus building on right to healthcare in civil society
• Development of a strategy for pooling all financial resources deployed in the health sector
• Redistribution of existing health resources, public and private, on the basis of standard norms (these would have to be specified) to assure physical (location) equity.

Ilina Sen speech for Binayak Sen’s award highlights India’s food, nutrition inequities

“In India, nutrition surveys of the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau have shown that over 33 % of the population have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 18.5, considered to be the minimum level for less than starvation standards. Translated to demography, this means that over 400 million people are exposed to near starvation conditions. To add to this catastrophic situation, we are confronted now with a new set of crises. Between 1990 and 2005, the daily per capita availability of foodgrains has fallen from 510 grams to 438. World food prices have risen, and the concentration of land ownership in a few hands has intensified.”

– Acceptance Speech for Jonathan Mann Award: Ilina Sen, Awards Banquet of the Global Health Council,
Washington, DC, May 29, 2008.

Campaign to free Binayak Sen: Chennai events on May 29

 

Through
ATTAM, PATTAM and KUTHU,
Artist for Human Rights,

voice against
THE UNJUST DETENTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

When: 29th may, 2008, 6 pm
Where: Chandralekha Center (junction of 5th avenue and 6th avenue)
No. 1, Elliots Beach road, Besant Nagar, ch-90
 
Performances by:
Chennai Kalai Kuzhu, Kanchi Makkal Mandram, Pudhiya Thor.
Dr. Binayak Sen is being conferred the prestigious Johnathan Mann award on the 29th of May for his dedicated service in providing medical care to indigenous people of chattisgarh and his committed struggle against Human Rights violations. But Dr. Sen would not be personally receiving the award because the STATE has IMPRISONED HIM.
The government of Chattisgarh has imprisoned human rights defenders like Binayak Sen and Ajay T.G and others for voicing against the government sponsored armed militias and the serious violations of human rights in the state. Human Rights defenders across the country have been targets of the STATE and are being imprisoned under draconian laws that allow for detention without trial. It is imperative that we raise our voices against the state of human rights in our country.
 Let us on the 29th of may join together
·        To celebrate the conferring of the award on Dr. Binayak Sen
·        Voice against the violation of human rights by the STATE.
·  Demand the immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen and other Human rights activist who are unjustly incarcerated.
 For further information contact Rakhal 9940246089, Venkat: 9884706531
CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF Dr. BINAYAK SEN

India children’s health ‘ignored’

(Editor’s Note: So why is the government arresting Dr Binayak Sen, a children’s doctor?)
BBC, 8 May 2008

More than half of Indian children under the age of five do not get the health care they need, according to a report by Save the Children.

It ranks India alongside Ghana when it comes to providing basic health care to its children under five years of age.

The annual report looks at whether developing countries are delivering health care effectively to children.

It found the Philippines was performing best with almost 69% of children able to get access to health care.

Ethiopia ranks last – only 16% of children under five get health care when they need it.

‘Basic measures’

The report, called State of the World’s Mothers, says girls die at much higher rates in India than most countries.

Although India has cut child its mortality rate by 34% since 1990, Indian girls are 61% more likely than boys to die between the ages of one and five.

Inequity of health care among male and female children is responsible for this situation, the report says.

The report says experts predict that over 60% of the nearly 10 million children who die every year could be saved by delivering basic health services through a health facility or community health worker.

“A child’s chance of reaching its fifth birthday should not depend on the country or community where it is born,” said Jasmine Whitbread, Save the Children’s chief executive.

“We need to do a better job of reaching the poorest children with basic health measures like vaccines, antibiotics and skilled care at childbirth,” she said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7389283

Medical camp in support of imprisoned doctor

The Hindu -26th April 2008

Bangalore, Staff reporter

Instead of sloganeering and rhetoric, groups of doctors across the country hit upon the idea of organising free medical camps to express their opposition against the imprisonment of human rights activist Binayak Sen.

To highlight what they termed an unfair arrest, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as People’s health movement and Medico Friends Circle organised one such camp at LR Nagar in Koramangala here on Friday.

Dr. Sen, vice-president of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), was arrested at Bilaspur in Chattisgarh in May 2007, on the charge of being linked to naxalites. Dr. Sen is known for his work among the poor. He is credited with setting up a unique 400 bed hospital run by a workers cooperative in a backward area of Chattisgarh.

Two of the six doctors at the camp, N. Devadasan and his wife Rupa, both public health specialists, were associates of Dr Sen. Dr Devadasan is a fellow alumni from CMC, Vellore.

US Healthcare: Evidence of a flawed model

Many middle class members have a simplistic, rosy view of US Healthcare. It is to this group, which also has significant purchasing power, that the private health insurance business is addressing its messages in India. The outcome is both negative and paradoxical in societal terms: the government is effectively withdrawing from expanding tertiary care for symptoms of chronic diseases, while for-profit institutions are fattening themselves on gullible citizens.

For all its perceived superiority among the middle classes, is the US system delivering the best results?

The most recent revelations point otherwise, as this excerpt from a story in the New York Times shows.

“It’s very troubling that there are parts of the wealthiest country in the world, with the highest health spending in the world, where health is getting worse,” said Majid Ezzati, the lead author and an associate professor of international health at Harvard. It is a phenomenon, he added, “unheard of in any other developed country.”

Read the full story here. The full paper published by the Public Library of Medicine is here.

Clearly, Professor Ezzati is making a comparison with the rest of the developed world that believes in state-supported, total healthcare, with demonstrably better results.

Will our policymakers take note?

ga

BHOPAL ACTIVISTS SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH DR BINAYAK SEN

PRESS RELEASE 16 April 2008
In a show of solidarity with the campaign for the release of Dr Binayak Sen, a delegation of activists representing the Bhopal gas tragedy survivors visited the second Free Binayak Sen Medical Camp in New Delhi on 13 April.

Speaking to members of the Jai Hind community, where the medical camp was organized, Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action  talked about Dr Sen’s important contribution to public health in Chattisgarh and his work on human rights. Dr Sen, renowned internationally for his humanitarian work, is currently detained by the Chattisgarh government on false charges of  aiding the underground Maoist movement.

“To arrest a person of  Dr Sen’s record of public service, non-violent social work and deep commitment to the poor is a complete travesty of justice” said Satinath Sarangi. He offered to hold medical camps in Bhopal in support of Dr Sen’s release through the Sambhavana clinic, which caters to over 30,000 people still suffering from the after effects of the gas disaster of 3 December 1984.

Other activists from Bhopal talked about the problems facing the survivors of  the world’s worst industrial disaster. Around 300 such survivors, who have walked over 800 kilometers from Bhopal to New Delhi, are in the national capital to highlight their demands for setting up a Special Commission on Bhopal to address various issues affecting local people and to prosecute Dow Chemicals which inherited the criminal and other liabilities of Union Carbide, the US multinational responsible for the Bhopal gas tragedy.

At the Free Binayak Sen Medical Camp over 150 patients from the Jai Hind community were treated for a variety of ailments – many of them linked to low nutrition, poor quality of drinking water and sanitation available in the area. The camp was organized by the Delhi based Sajha Manch and its associated organisations as part of a  nationwide initiative for the release of popular health and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen.

“Training local youth in basic principles of medical care will be helpful to them as well as the community in general ” said Dr Jacob Puliyal, one of the doctors volunteering his services for the camp. Doctors participating in the Free Binayak Sen Medical Camps  have offered to provide such training to youth from the Jai Hind community and this is expected to commence in May this year.

The initiative, of holding monthly Free Binayak Sen Medical Camps for the urban and rural poor, in cities and towns around the country – is meant to raise public awareness about Dr Sen’s detention under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, and call for his unconditional release.

The camps are also part of an effort to take forward Dr Sen’s innovative public health work to new areas and highlight the issues of nutrition, child health and the link between socio-economic rights and health. According to a  recent report by the news channel IBN/CNN over 6000 children die every day due to malnutrition in India, a situation worse than prevailing in sub-Saharan Africa.

Other Free Binayak Sen Medical Camps are planned among urban poor communities for April in Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore and Kolkata.

For further information contact:
Dunu Roy, New Delhi             qadeeroy@vsnl.com Ph: 9910687627
Satya Sivaraman, New Delhi satyasagar@gmail.com Ph: 9818514952
Dr Rakhal Gaitonde, Chennai subharakhal@gmail.com Ph: 9940246089
Dr Punyabrata Gun, Kolkata shramajibiswasthya@yahoo.co.in Ph: 9830922194
Dr N.Devadasan, Bangalore deva@devadasan.com Ph: 9448491355

FREE DR BINAYAK SEN CAMPAIGN