The human right to health means that everyone has the right to
the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes access to all medical services,
sanitation, adequate food, decent housing, healthy working conditions, and a clean
environment.
What this means is;
The human right to health
guarantees a system of health protection for all.
Everyone has the right to the
health care they need, and to living conditions that enable them to be healthy,
such as adequate food, housing, and a healthy environment.
Health care must be provided as a
public good for all, financed publicly and equitably.
The human right to health care
means that hospitals, clinics, medicines, and doctors’ services must be
accessible, available, acceptable, and of good quality for everyone, on an
equitable basis, where and when needed irrespective of location, level of
education and socioeconomic status.
The design of a health care system must be
guided by the following key human rights standards and components:
1. The Right to Appropriate Health Care
The right to healthcare requires
the establishment of health facilities, goods and services such as hospitals,
doctors and drugs that are of good quality and available to all on an equal
basis. These services must be affordable to everyone, the dignity of the people
and their diverse needs must be respected and operations must be transparent.
And these facilities must provide preventive, curative, palliative and
rehabilitative health services, including regular screening programs, appropriate
treatment of prevalent diseases and illnesses, injuries, both physical and
mental and all necessary medications. Health care institutions and providers in other words must
respect dignity, provide culturally appropriate care, be responsive to needs
based on gender, age, culture, language, and different ways of life and
abilities. They must respect medical ethics and protect confidentiality.
2. The Right to an Adequate Supply of Water, Food,
Nutrition and Housing.
The right to health requires equal
access for all underlying determinants of health, such as an adequate supply of
food and proper nutrition, safe and potable water, basic sanitation and
adequate housing and living conditions. These amenities are not privileges but
basic human rights.
3. The Right to a Healthy Environment and Healthy Working
Conditions.
The right to a healthy environment
requires ‘’the prevention and reduction of the population’s exposure to harmful
substances… or other detrimental environmental conditions that directly or
indirectly impact upon human health’’, including the pollution of air, water
and soil. The right to safe and healthy working conditions requires the establishment
of ‘‘preventive measures in respect of occupational accidents and diseases’’,
as well as the minimization of the ‘’causes of health hazards inherent in the
working environment’’.
4. The Right to Maternal, Child and Reproductive Health
The right to health requires
special provisions for improving child and maternal health, sexual and
reproductive health services as well as the treatment of diseases affecting
women, reduction of women’s health risks and protection of women from domestic
violence.
5. The Right to participate in Health-Related
Decision-Making.
The Right to health requires the
promotion of effective community participation in ‘’setting priorities, making
decisions, planning, implementing and evaluating strategies to achieve better
health’’.This includes participation in the ‘’provision of preventive health
services, such as the organization of the health sector, the insurance system
and in particular, participation in political decisions relating to the right
to health taken at both the community and national levels’’. Therefore
Individuals and communities
must be able to take an active role in decisions that affect their health,
including in the organization and implementation of health care services.
6. The Right to Access Health-Related Information.
The Right to access health-related
information requires ‘’the promotion of
medical research and health education, as well as information campaigns, in
particular with respect to HIV/AIDS and [other sexually transmitted diseases],
sexual and reproductive health, traditional practices, domestic violence, the
abuse of alcohol and the use of cigarettes, drugs and other harmful substances’’
Health information must be easily accessible for everyone, enabling
people to protect their health and claim quality health services. Institutions
that organize, finance or deliver health care must operate in a transparent way.
Health Inequality is so unfair and should never have been the
case. If the Government of Nigeria beginning with the Federal Ministry of
Health takes these rights and components as a goal, Nigeria and all the
Nigerian people will experience equity in health irrespective of their
socioeconomic status and geographical location. And these should be a huge
awakening for Nigerians to their basic right to health.
Uc -Okonmah
References
· Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly, April 27, 2007/56[16];393-397
· Nutrition
Assessment; A Comprehensive Guide for Planning Intervention, 2nd
ed.Margaret D.Simko, Catherine Cowell, Judith A.Gilbride, An Aspen Publication,
2000
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