After the universal declaration of human
rights (UDHR) in 1948, health right issues have been expanded continuously.
Discussion on health as a right has reflected changes of the global society’s
environment and culture. Modern society has several issues which have to be
addressed in terms of health as a right.
Rapid advances of the medical knowledge
and treatment cause information inequality between doctors and patients. Though
some argues that patients’ accessibility to the medical information has increased,
specialization in medical treatment enables expertise to control people in the
way that they want. Since patients’ health-related information is sensitive personal
information as well as difficult for patients to interpret and assess themselves,
collection, store, use and exchange of the information is critical issues. Medical
information monopoly-related issues can be addressed as a civil right in the sense
that they are related to the rights to know. Privatization of the medical
treatment should also be addressed in terms of public health. Though it emphasizes
high quality medical service, it generates several issues which conflict with rights
to health since limited populations are capable of the access.
In addition,
globalization generates transnational issues such as an increase of migration
workers and refugees. Previous political efforts to ensure their right were addressed
in the boundary of the nation-state, but as national boundary has been blurred,
the issues such as a citizenship of the immigrants become politically sensitive
and start to be considered from the universal view. In this sense, their health
issues also should be approached as a human right (Toole & Waldman, 1993).
Furthermore, we should also consider laborer health. Basically, health issues of
that group of people has not been broadly discussed and approached only in
terms of hazard environment in the workplaces. However, as labor market becomes
flexible according to the restructuring of the employment and the advent of new
societal/economic system, variety of social issues has come up which promote
health problems. For example, stresses from the contingent employment, layoff
and employment instability cause depression, and even in extreme cases they lead
serious problem such as suicide. Therefore, the labor health could be a crucial
topic to be addressed in modern society.
Lastly, world’s environmental problems
are also the main issues which have to be addressed from the health as a human
right’s perspective since they are directly related to the health of mankind.
Changes in the ecosystem including global warming increase health risk for all
individuals. To ensure and realize the optimal health of the people all around
the world, not only the public interventions are required such as health and
medical treatment system, but also various conditions which compose of human
life should be improved. Natural environment is one of the most important conditions,
so it should be discussed in the boundary of health as a human right. As
examined so far, societal, economic and environmental changes across the world pose
several issues which can be considered in the health right perspective. Based
on these general ideas, each of these issues is needed to be investigated further.
References
Toole, M. J., & Waldman, R. J. (1993). Refugees and displaced persons. Jama, 270(5), 600-605.
These issues are important to the conceptualization of health as a human right. I think that one of the underlying problems facing the conceptualization of health as a human right are issues related to poor articulation of the purview of health as a human right. Environmental issues may already be addressed by human rights documents, but to what extent do these rights guarantee or ensure a specified environmental standard to be maintained? I found it interesting when you discussed the vast difference between patient and provider knowledge and how this creates a system of power which may leave patients feeling helpless if the provider fails to adequately interpret the meaning of health in a way that is easily understood by the patient. This, however, is a difficult task for clinicians as the inherent complexity of some diseases and illnesses make it difficult to articulate them in an easily understood manner. Many diseases, however, are not to complex to be explained and yet this discourse is not occurring because clinicians are forced to see more patients per hour meaning less time to talk to patients and address their concerns and questions. This problem is not likely to get better as the looming physician shortage is nearing at a time when the baby boomers are increasing become of an age when health services are frequently needed. Perhaps the knowledge gap could be addressed by a reliable and reputable online database whereby patients may find information articulated in an easily understood manner where time is not a factor and cost is not prohibitive.
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