Setting Priorities for a Basic Minimum of Accessible Health Care

Author(s):  
Paul T. Menzel
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Christian Whalen

AbstractArticle 24 reflects the perspective of the drafters that the right to health cannot be understood in narrow bio-medical terms or limited to the delivery of health services. Rather, in its reference, for example, to food, water, sanitation, and environmental dangers, it recognises the wider social and economic factors that influence and impact on the child’s state of health. Thus, the text of Article 24 sets out: a broad right to health for all children combined with a right of access to health services a priority focus on measures to address infant and child mortality, the provision of primary health care, nutritious food and clean drinking water, pre-natal and post-natal care, and preventive health care, including family planning the need for effective measures to abolish traditional practices harmful to children’s health a specific obligation on States Parties to cooperate internationally towards the realisation of the child’s right to health everywhere, having particular regard to the needs of developing countries. The right to health is a prime example of the interelatedness of child rights as it is contingent upon and informed by the realization of so many other rights guaranteed to children under the convention. This chapter analyses the child’s right to health in relation to four essential attributes. The first attribute of the child’s right to the highest attainable standard of health emphasizes what an exacting standard this human rights norm contains. Taking a social determinants of health perspective the right entails not just access to health services but programmatic supports in sanitation, transportation, education and other fields to guarantee the enjoyment of health. The second attribute focuses on the Basic minimum criteria of the right to health as reflected in Article 24(2). A third attribute is the insistence upon child health accountability mechanisms using the Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability and Quality Accountability Framework. Finally, given the wide discrepancies in enjoyment of children’s right to health across the globe, a fourth attribute focuses upon international cooperation to ensure equal access to the right to health.


1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (4II) ◽  
pp. 1081-1102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Basanta K. Pradhan ◽  
M. R. Saluja

As it is well-known, the study of poverty is extremely important on moral and philosophical and also, political grounds. Further, evidences are available to show that poverty affects growth adversely. We, therefore, have made an attempt to review some of the important studies on poverty in India. The concept of poverty relates to socially perceived deprivation with respect to basic minimum needs. In the Indian context, poverty is measured in terms of a specified normative poverty line reflecting the minimum living standard of the people. Defining a poverty line is, therefore, the first step in estimating poverty. According to the Expert Group (1993), a poverty line, dividing the poor from the non-poor, is used by putting a price on the minimum required consumption levels of food, clothing, shelter, fuel and health care, etc. In equal practice however, the poverty lines are normative only in terms of calorie requirements of the diet.


Author(s):  
Mamta Chauhan

Primary health care (PHC) center is the first point of contact between community and the medical officer at village level. The PHCs have been envisaged to provide an integrated curative and preventive health care to the rural population with emphasis on preventive and promotive aspects of health care. The PHCs are established and maintained by the State Governments under the minimum needs programme or basic minimum services programme. At present, a PHC is manned by a medical officer supported by paramedical and other staff. It acts as a referral unit for 4 to 6 sub centres. It has 6 beds for patients. The activities of PHC involve curative, preventive, promotive and family welfare services. There are 2080 PHCs functioning as on March, 2018 in the Rajasthan.


1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-203
Author(s):  
Kendra Carlson

The Supreme Court of California held, in Delaney v. Baker, 82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 610 (1999), that the heightened remedies available under the Elder Abuse Act (Act), Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 15657,15657.2 (West 1998), apply to health care providers who engage in reckless neglect of an elder adult. The court interpreted two sections of the Act: (1) section 15657, which provides for enhanced remedies for reckless neglect; and (2) section 15657.2, which limits recovery for actions based on “professional negligence.” The court held that reckless neglect is distinct from professional negligence and therefore the restrictions on remedies against health care providers for professional negligence are inapplicable.Kay Delaney sued Meadowood, a skilled nursing facility (SNF), after a resident, her mother, died. Evidence at trial indicated that Rose Wallien, the decedent, was left lying in her own urine and feces for extended periods of time and had stage I11 and IV pressure sores on her ankles, feet, and buttocks at the time of her death.


1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-275
Author(s):  
O. Lawrence ◽  
J.D. Gostin

In the summer of 1979, a group of experts on law, medicine, and ethics assembled in Siracusa, Sicily, under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science, to draft guidelines on the rights of persons with mental illness. Sitting across the table from me was a quiet, proud man of distinctive intelligence, William J. Curran, Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Legal Medicine at Harvard University. Professor Curran was one of the principal drafters of those guidelines. Many years later in 1991, after several subsequent re-drafts by United Nations (U.N.) Rapporteur Erica-Irene Daes, the text was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care. This was the kind of remarkable achievement in the field of law and medicine that Professor Curran repeated throughout his distinguished career.


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