[GENEVA, 27 March 2007] - The profile of the Right to Health needs a boost, Paul Hunt, Special Rapporteur on the Right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, said today. Mr Hunt, speaking at the Child Rights Caucus morning briefing, said most health professionals he talks to have no knowledge of the Right to Health, or of how a human rights perspective can help them do their jobs better. He identified discrimination, particularly against women and children, and poverty as the main obstacles to health provision in his report to the Human Rights Council. He aims to determine how people in poorer areas, and disadvantaged groups, can better access health care. He said his report had three main goals: Mr Hunt stressed the Right to Health does not just mean the right to health care, but access to water, food, and sanitation. The duties of both national governments and the international community must be considered, while non-state actors such as pharmaceutical companies must also face up to their responsibilities, he said. He spoke of his experience of Severe Withdrawal Syndrome in Sweden, which is especially prevalent amongst asylum-seeking children. The condition leads to a “withdrawal from the world in a sort of coma,” he said, adding it is a “very political issue” in Sweden which needs to be addressed. He has recommended the integral involvement of the children’s commissioner to ensure the issue becomes more than a mere medical or political matter. He also raised the issue of maternal mortality, reporting that 500,000 women die in childbirth every year. He said the issue could become a vehicle for strengthening the health system as a whole. For more information, visit: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/health/right/
Child Rights Caucus: Morning briefing with the Special Rapporteur on Health
To raise the profile of the Right to Health as a fundamental human right
To clarify the meaning of human rights, and to better define countries’ obligations
To “operationalise” the Right, so that countries can put theory into practice
Countries
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