Students say ‘NO’ to unjust aid conditions
Today we’ve posted an article on mental health in Sierra Leone - there’ll be more on that topic on Friday as it’s World Mental Health day. Meanwhile, Jonny Currie from Medsin writes below on their latest campaign to end conditional aid for healthcare. It’s students like you who make events such as this one a success, so we’d love to hear from you about other campaigns and what action students are taking in your country.
Students attending last weekend’s Medsin-UK Autumn General Assembly joined with development NGOs who are calling for an end to conditions imposed on aid by donors which force developing countries to invest in private services for their population.
Medsin members making themselves heard last weekend
Patients in developing countries pay on average 50-90% of their own healthcare costs (1), a statistic made more depressing when considering many of the world’s poorest live on incomes of less than $1-2 a day. Despite this, aid donors in fact are encouraging of money to be spent on private services under neoliberal economic policies which seek to minimise the extent to which a government pays for and manages services.
In anticipation of a joint International Monetary Fund-World Bank conference this month, activists around the world are telling the international community to ’start taking public services seriously’ and stop requiring funds to be channelled to private services which deter poor patients from accessing needed healthcare services.
Medsin AGA Attendees mobilised for a series of photo stunts with demands ranging from “No to donor conditionality” to “Public Health not Private Wealth”. Students also signed pledges asking Douglas Alexander, the Secretary of State for International Development, to lead the way in championing free public healthcare for poor countries.
Jonny Currie, Medsin Campaigns Coordinator and one of those taking part in the action, was encouraged by the enthusiasm of the participants in the stunt: “Finances and economics are just as important a building block for health systems as are medicines or more health workers.” Many countries have demonstrated the success of publicly-run and well-resourced healthcare systems for providing for their populations; the challenge is for the international community to learn from these cases and move rapidly and practicably to bringing to fruition a package of healthcare for the world’s poor.
If you feel strongly about this issue, you can sign on to the Oxfam letter asking the UK government to “Make free public health care a reality for all“. If you are not based in the UK, it would be great to hear about efforts being taken in other countries to address this issue. Also, see these links to the RESULTS Education Fund for some more info about the effects of IMF conditions on health spending in developing countries, and more specifically on the IMF’s conditions’ impact on the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Medsin is a nationwide student-run organisation taking action on health inequalities. To find out more about the Health Systems campaign please visit www.medsin.org/campaigns/healthsystems
(1) Justo, L. A patent to kill? Comments on Resnik. Developing World Bioethics, 2(1), p.82-87.