More than 50 per cent of the people in my country have virtually no access to health care. It´s high time the public sector and the private sector focused on jointly providing health services to all sections of society. Dr Hugo Icu, Guatemala, January 2004
Testimonies from the People’s Health Assembly published by the People’s Health Movement May 2002
Every year in Geneva, Switzerland, health decision-makers from all over the world attend the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the United Nations’ World Health Organisation (WHO). Over the years, non-governmental organisations have lobbied for people-sensitive health policies at the World Health Assembly, but to little avail. Thus they envisaged a People’s Health Assembly as both a forum and process that would enable people to be involved in making decisions which affect their health and their lives.
Nick Henwood, IHRG. "Who works for the City when “This City Works for you”? Documenting municipal workers’ OH&S in the City of Cape Town"
Carina van Rooyen, University of Johannesburg. "Are PUPs an Alternative to PPPs? The Case of Rand Water"
Nomafrench Mbombo. PhD., University of the Western Cape, Faculty of Community & Health Sciences, Cape Town, South Africa. "Africanizing the Human Rights Approach to Health: The Art of Caring"
Mary Galvin. Co-ordinator, The Water Dialogues South Africa. "The Role of Dialogue in the Struggle for Universal Water and Sanitation in SA"
Leslie Swartz. Chair, Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University. "How Depressing: Poverty, Mental Health and Municipal Services in South Africa"
Patrick Bond and Graham Erion, Centre for Civil Society, UKZN. "South African Carbon Trading: Is Commodifying the Air a Serious Climate Change Strategy?"
Leslie London, Jacky Thomas, Zelda Holtman1, Lucy Gilson, Ermin Erasmus. "Health professionals as gatekeepers or facilitators of community agency: Can a social movement realize the Right to Health?"
David McDonald, Queens University. "Electric Capitalism: Recolonizing Africa on the Power Grid"
Lenny Gentle, ILRIG. "Escom to Eskom: From racial capitalism to neo-liberalism"
Fred Hendricks. Faculty of Humanities, Rhodes University. "The Private Affairs of Public Pensions in South Africa Debt, Development and Corporatisation"
Melanie Samson, York University. "Understanding Privatization as a Social Process– Towards a Feminist Historical Materialist Methodology"
Emile van Heyningen. "DWAF involvement in Water Dialogues"
Farhaad Haffejee, Mickey Chopra, David Sanders. School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape. "The Problem of Handwashing and Paying for Water in South Africa"
Suggestions about how to organise a Jan Sunwai
Jan Sunwai is a process by means of which any issue related to social sector is addressed to a panel of experts from the related field. As a part of it, recommendations from the panel are then given to the Government for immediate action so as to make relevant changes in its functioning.
Objectives of a Jan Sunwai
1. To document and highlight the cases of denial of health care.
2. To present these cases to public health officials and expert panelists so as to emphasize the structural eficiencies in particular health facilities underlying such cases.
3. To create awareness amongst the civil society organisations about the various health services which should be provided by the Government at different levels.