Health policies must protect human rights - Commissioner
Human rights must be given full and proper consideration in the drawing up of health policies, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commissioner claimed today.
Professor Monica McWilliams said recent reports had found health authorities were far behind other public authorities in fulfilling their human rights obligations.
“The Human Rights Commission has found that unlike the equality agenda, human rights have not been systematically considered in the design and implementation of health policies, programmes and procedures nor have they been key to medical decision making,” Professor McWilliams said at the Action for Equity conference in Carlingford, Co Louth.
Professor McWilliams said a recent Audit Commission Report found 73% of health trusts, compared with 58% of public authorities as a whole, have not taken action on human rights.
Avril Doyle, Fine Gael MEP, told the conference there was no equity in Europe when it comes to healthcare.
She said Ireland had one of the worst healthcare systems in Europe in terms of consumer-friendliness according to the 2006 Euro Health Consumer Index, which measures patients’ rights and information and waiting times for treatment.
“Inequities within and between EU member states, varying health insurance schemes and unequal access to treatment in other states are serious problems that need to be tackled at both EU and national levels,” she said.
“Ireland is a significant exporter of patients, and unsurprisingly hardly any patients from other EU countries choose to travel to Ireland for treatment. In 2002, the year in which Ireland was forced to set up the National Treatment Purchase Fund to reduce our ever-lengthening hospital waiting lists, almost 2,000 Irish patients travelled to the UK for treatment and another 700 travelled to other member states.”
As the two-day all-Ireland conference kicked off on the UN’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Professor McWilliams said the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was keenly aware of the correlation between health and various forms of inequality.
“The Commission agrees with the UN Special Rapporteur, Paul Hunt, that ‘ill health is both a cause and a consequence of poverty, good health is not just an outcome of development it is a way of achieving development’,” she said.
Director of the World Health Organisation, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, said people cannot hope to reduce poverty and integrate the poorest parts of our world in a global economy unless the epidemics which are killing millions of people daily are tackled.
Dr Brundtland, who was also the former Norwegian Prime Minister, said that a healthy population is an essential to creating social and economic development as much as a result of it.
“It is becoming more evident that health, and equitable access to health services and treatments, is playing a more central role in poverty reduction,” he said.
“I have become aware of the considerable challenge posed by poverty, according to recent data from Eurostat. Looking at the ‘at risk of poverty’ rate after social transfers, the Irish rate is above 20%, more than double the Scandinavian rate. This also illustrates the considerable focus in this country on the debate about equity, and your complex issue of private and public patients in public hospitals,” he said.
Dr Brundtland said a thorough debate on these issues in Ireland was the only way forward.
Professor McWilliams said it was important health was shown to be a basic human right with efforts made to reduce health inequalities and provide a universal service for all based on clinical need and not ability to pay.
She said the commission was examining a number of cases raising the issue of high cost treatments, more specifically in relation to arthritic and multiple sclerosis conditions.
Dr Jane Wilde, director of the Institute of Public Health in Ireland which is hosting the conference, said the Action for Equity conference was working to identify the types of action and policies that can be effective in providing good health for all people.
