[afro-nets] Profits before Patients

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Subject: Profits before Patients
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From: Fran Baum
To: letters@newstatesman.co.uk

Dear Editor,

Across the world, the UK NHS was seen as a beacon of hope for
advocates of publicly provided health care. The system kept the
costs down (the UK did spend less than half as much as the US on
health care) and was reasonably equitable and universal (by con-
tract in the US over 45 million people have no health insurance
at all). The private health sector was small. Now the UK spends
more (but still significant less than the US) and the system is
subject to the vagaries of the quest for profits in a system
that should never have been allowed to be thrown open to market
forces.

Similar moves are happening around the world. In Australia those
with private health insurance receive a subsidy that costs tax-
payers A$ 2.5 billion a year - money much needed by the public
system. In the continent with the worst health status of all -
Africa - the ideology of privatisation (imposed by the World
Bank and IMF) has stripped bare the public infrastructure that
did exist. Africa, despite huge need, is left with debilitated
health systems.

Health services should be an accepted part of the public infra-
structure and access to them provided as a basic human right.
This is quite affordable and even more so when profiteers are
not involved. It is exactly this right that the rapidly growing
People's Health Movement is demanding around the world (see
http://www.phmovement.org). The demand for access to publicly
funded health services as a basic human right has a deep reso-
nance for people from every continent as the growth of the PHM
testifies.