KARACHI: Right to health is right to life. Lawyers and health practitioners should work together to spread this message far and wide so that people could have access to healthcare.
This was the consensus among participants in a dialogue organised by the National Commission for Human Rights (Sindh office) on health as human rights and mechanism for redress at a hotel here on Saturday evening.
Introducing the commission, Anis Haroon said it was formed through an act passed by the National Assembly. It had a lot of powers, such as it could take suo motu notice of human rights violation. She said it could also review all the international treatises that Pakistan had signed and recommend and give suggestions accordingly. She said human rights courts would be established at district levels which could summon anyone except forces and intelligent agencies.
Ms Haroon said till now the commission had given its reports on different issues such as the Thar and Okara incidents. She said it was in a process of establishing a Karachi sub-office also. She said if we looked at our Constitution, health was mentioned as our fundamental right in principles of policy of the state, but that policy was limited. Also, she said it needed to be seen whether health was mentioned as a basic human right in the subject of medicine that’s taught and if a law was made could it also be made part of the curriculum.
Dr Kausar SK, who conducted the event, said the meeting was basically a dialogue between health practitioners and lawyers. She said people often used the word ‘rights’ but it had to be understood in what context it was used. She said all over the world it had been analysed but we needed to know that how to use it in legal language.
Dr Kausar then asked each participating what they understood by the phrase ‘right to health’. It elicited a variety of responses. Some of the many responses were: mother-child health, services of safety, healthcare for all, reproductive health, provision of basic health facilities to the masses, health facilities for the common man, the state’s responsibility, the state should provide health facilities etc.
After the brainstorming session, a film on healthcare facilities in Cuba was shown. Then Dr Kausar sought participants’ opinion on the film. One of them said Cuba had realised the right to health whereas the Philippines did not. Another said prevention was better than cure. Another said in Cuba there was a government which cared about the issue, but in countries where there were anti-people governments, things were different.
When the discussion was over, Dr Kausar turned to lawyers for their comments on the issue. Akmal Wasim said the right to life and liberty was in our Constitution and life embodied every dimension (including health). He made a distinction that right to health and right to healthcare were different. He said the former was generic whereas the latter was specific and had to do with policies. He said we needed to lobby on laws for which activism was required.
Lawyer Shoaib Ashraf said civil society organisations should liaise with lawyers to press for the issue. He stressed that lawyers should be consulted.
In the last part of the dialogue, suggestions were sought to see what the way forward was. One participant suggested that civil society should exert pressure. Another came up with the idea that the media should be involved in it so that its message went wide and across. Another said all of that should begin with primary health and things should be prioritised for public litigation.
The PPP’s Taj Haider said health was a provincial subject.
Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2016
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