MMS Symposium 2018. “Health is a fundamental human right. However, today inequality, poverty, exploitation, violence and injustice still prevent one billion people from accessing healthcare. To achieve the goal of ”Health for All”, inequalities must be eliminated, resources better distributed by ensuring no-one is left behind, and political and economic interests must be geared towards achieving the goal. In the 40th anniversary year of the Alma-Ata Declaration, realising the vision of Alma-Ata is clearly more urgent than ever.

The World Health Organization’s most ambitious plan for promoting equal access to essential healthcare worldwide was the ‘Global Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000’, based on the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978. Although a lot of milestones have been reached since 2000, we still have a long way to go.

In the list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), health has just one universal aim: to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all, at all ages. ‘Comprehensive Primary Healthcare’ now features in the SDGs under a new name: ‘Universal Health Coverage’ (UHC). It currently remains to be seen whether the international community is willing to contribute to what is required, or if we are heading for selective UHC, as we have already seen with the implementation of selective primary healthcare.

We have 12 years left to achieve the Agenda 2030 goals. The purpose of the symposium is to discuss:

  • what is required to achieve ‘health for all by the year 2030’;
  • the major obstacles and push factors;
  • what our member organisations, and civil society organisations in general, require to realise ‘health for all by 2030’.

The Network Medicus Mundi Switzerland will use the occasion as an opportunity to publish and discuss a new manifesto which will be a core document in its understanding of the way forward to achieving ‘Health for All’.”

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Tuesday, 6 November 2018:
MMI Network meetings as side events to the MMS Symposium

 

close-to-client care