The transform! europe Commons Working Group at the World Social Forum of Transformative Economies (Transformadora).
Health care as basic human right and part of the Universal Global Social Justice scheme. The pandemic shows the tragedy of neo-liberal health care politics in those countries with still existing but reduced public health care systems and the unconceivable distress in those countries without functioning public health care.
Health care is a basic human right and it has to be organised as Commons and not as market-driven system. This means: A holistic approach to health with good prevention strategies, access for all citizens to services of good standard and qualitative medicine, structuring the system democratic with the participation of medical staff and citizens in decision making processes.
Participants:
Amulya Nidhi, public health expert working to bring existing public health services to the poor and vulnerable patients from the tribal and rural hinterland of Madhya Pradesh. He is a key member in the struggle of the victims to address rampant prevalence of silicosis among the migrant tribal labour of western Madhya Pradesh. Nidhi has been involved in extensive judicial, policy and grassroot activism to make state machinery accountable through formulating state level silicosis policies, and compensation and rehabilitation of the victims.
Through ‘Swasthya Adhikar Manch’ he has successfully spearheaded a campaign against unethical clinical trial by collecting and advocating evidences from Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, and have been instrumental in making new acts and rules for ethical clinical trials in India. Amulya Nidhi is National Co-Convenor of the People’s Health Movement (PHM, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan), India.
Hani Serag, physician a public health researcher based in Cairo. His previous work includes serving as Global Coordinator of the People’s Health Movement (PHM), a global network of civil society organizations, academic institutes and health activists, and as Director of the Health Policy and Systems Program of the Association Health and Environmental Development (a leading civil society organization in Egypt). He has been involved in a wide range of educational and training activities in both the public and global health fields. He has planned and developed curricula and taught more than 30 training courses. Most of these courses target public health practitioners, in particular from the non-profit sector, health system research and global health. He is also an experienced leader in fundraising and resource mobilization.
Gaëlle Krikorian, currently Head of Policy of the Access Campaign at Medicins sans Frontière (MSF). She holds a PhD in sociology. Her researches concern social movements, globalization, health and technologies. She is a former advisor on Access to Knowledge and Intellectual Property Issues for the Greens/European Free Alliance at the European Parliament. She is author of various articles on the Commons, intellectual property issues, access to medicines, etc.
Moderator:
Francine Mestrum, holds a PhD in social sciences. Her research concerns social development, poverty, inequality, globalization and gender relations. She is co-ordinator of Global Social Justice and represents CETRI (Centre Tricontinental) in the International Council of the World Social Forum. She is now involved with the AEPF (Asian European People Forum) in strengthening relations between civil society organizations on both continents.
For further information, see the Transformadora website.