| Background and Context |
The Public Health Situation in South AfricaAlthough South Africa boasts a constitution considered amongst the most progressive in the world with a Bill of Rights that enshrines a range of rights to health and the conditions necessary for health, the practical realization of these rights remains elusive. For example, although the right of access to health care is one of a range of socio-economic rights to which all South Africans are entitled, there is abundant evidence that access to health care is limited by a range of institutional and poverty-related factors, such that the South African Human Rights Commission undertook an investigation into, and held a public hearing on the right to health in South Africa in 2007 (see Government Gazette of 16th February 2007, Notice 162 of 2007). There is a large gap between the human rights provisions in the constitution and what is happening on the ground, especially evident in rural & peri-urban areas where infant and young child mortality rates continue to climb, and where severe childhood undernutrition is being increasingly reported from health facilities. Additionally, levels of chronic undernutrition amongst young children have remained intractably high over the last decade. We know also that many incidents of the violation of people’s rights to health continue to occur in South Africa. The Establishment of PHM-South AfricaIn response to these challenges, a local chapter of the People’s Health Movement was established in South Africa in 2003. Consistent with the approach of the People’s Health Movement internationally3, which is a global umbrella network of civil society groups, researchers, activists and teachers involved in health, the local chapter of PHM was launched on the basis of operationalising health as a right, and reinvigorating civil society action for health that was characteristic of the anti-apartheid period. It is the position of PHM that only if civil society is well organized and active in pursuing health rights will the promise of constitutional rights to health be effectively realized. PHM’s campaigning has also reaffirmed a global commitment to revitalizing Primary Health Care and a view of health that recognizes the social determinants of health as being much broader than just health care; rather socio-economic resources, such as adequate housing, clean water, provision of safe sanitation and access to basic nutrition are essential to good health. The right to health therefore embraces a wide range of claims to socio-economic entitlements beyond access to health care, notwithstanding the importance of health services. __________ 1 London L. Can Human rights serve as a tool for Equity? Equinet Discussion Paper 14. Co-published by the Regional Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa (EQUINET) and the University of Cape Town School of Public Health and Family Medicine, December 2003, Harare. Available at URL http://www.equinetafrica.org/bibl/docs/POL14rights.pdf |
