As championed by the United Nations and other NGOs, the international commitment to providing ‘health for all’, universal basic schooling and adequate shelter has long been contradicted by a development approach based upon a market fundamentalism that subordinates human welfare to corporate profits – necessitating an enormous shift in global priorities.
Advance of HIV/AIDS is markedly reducing economic and employment growth in countries hit hardest by the epidemic, jeopardising their efforts to reduce poverty, create new jobs — especially for youth — and fight child labour, according to a report by the International Labour Office (of the International Labour Organisation) on the eve of World AIDS Day.
Each year at least 1.16 million newborns die in sub-Saharan Africa within the first 28 days of life, making the region the world’s most dangerous to be born in, yet more than two thirds of these infants could be saved with low cost, low tech action, according to a United Nations-backed report.
On the eve of Children's Day, 80 children and representatives from schools and NGOs met to deliberate on this question in New Delhi.The group comprised of activists of the "Nine Is Mine" campaign - an initiative of children, schools, communities and organizations across 15 states of India to ensure that the government commits 9% of the GDP to public expenditure on Health & Education, as promised in the National Common Minimum Program.
It gets little attention, but it is deadly nonetheless. More than 200,000 women will get breast cancer in America this year. More than 40,000 will die from it. In comparison, we lost more than 50,000 men and women in Vietnam, and nearly 3,000 in Iraq.
For Joel Segal, it was the day he was kicked out of George Washington Hospital, still on an IV after knee surgery, without insurance, and with $100,000 in medical debt. For Kiki Peppard, it was having to postpone needed surgery until she could find a job with insurance -- it took her two years. People all over the United States are waking up to the fact that our system of providing health care is a disaster.
