The Millennium Development Goals

1
The Millennium Development Goals The Health
Professionals

• Rubina Sohail
• Associate Professor of Obstetrics Gynaecology
• Services Institute of Medical Sciences, Lahore

2
Right to Health - Evolution

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights -1948
  International media barely reported
• 2005 Now, the worlds most translated document
• By the year 2000 - Goal Health for all
• Attention to economic, social and cultural rights
  
• Commitments Majestic failure to live up to
  expectations

3

• September 2000
• Reduce poverty hunger by half by the year 2015
• MDGs
• Eight targets - Help meet these basic needs for
  most people
• One of the most striking features of the
  Millennium Development Goals is the prominence
  they give to health
• UN Special Rapporteur Paul Hunt

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The Millennium Development Goals

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for development

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Promoting Protecting - Right to Health

• 2002 - Rapporteur
• For promotion and protection of the right to
  health
• Objectives
• Raise the profile of health as a fundamental
  human right
• Increase jurisprudential understanding of the
  right to health.
• Identify good practices on how the right to
  health has been respected, protected and
  fulfilled

6
MDGs Ground Situation

• Slow uneven progress towards MDG targets
• At the current rate, many may be missed
  altogether
• The mere existence of MDGs does not empower the
  poor people governments
• The government can provide an arena for critical
  engagement

7

• Participation can transform country-owned
  strategies
• into development strategies owned and implemented
• by a wide range of stakeholders,
• making them more effective sustainable

8
The Role of Health Professionals

• Health professionals are both victims and
  perpetrators of human rights violations
• Constitute an essential element in ensuring the
  fulfillment of the right to health
• Concern about the role of health professionals in
  human rights violations in the context to stigma
  and discrimination

9
Health Professionals Current Situation

• Minimal awareness amongst health care
  professionals for health as a human right
• Need to create a platform for human rights
  concerns within the medical profession
• Need for a paradigm shift for health professionals

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Health Professionals The Way Forward

• Before
• Compassion
• Good clinical practice
• After
• Broaden perspectives
• Increase responsibilities
• Protect and fulfill the human rights of
  individuals based on universal standards

Guided by medical code of ethics
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Workshop on Poverty, RH the MDGs31st March
2005 (Islamabad)

• Recommendations
• Information, prevention, diagnosis treatment
  for STIs and HIV/AIDS
• Training and commitment of health professionals
  to
• Ensure that rights of their patients are
  respected
• Correct medical ethics are adhered to

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Workshop on Poverty, RH the MDGs31st March
2005 (Islamabad)

• Strengthening of health systems
• Policies for availability of EmOC
• Increasing the number of SBAs
• Inclusion of the sexual and reproductive health
  in the future implementation of the MDGs

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WSRR Project - Pakistan

• FIGO SOGP
• Duration 3 years
• Objectives
• Development of code of ethics
• Sensitization
• Inclusion in curriculum
• Activities

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WSRR Project - Pakistan

• Lessons learnt
• Limited awareness in health professionals and
  medical students about WSSR
• Reluctance to discuss
• Need of capacity building
• Medical students response was encouraging

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Health Professionals MDGsConclusions

• Recommendations
• Awareness sensitization
• Defining roles
• Capacity building
• Participatory approach for achieving goals

• Responsibilities
• EmOC
• Sexual reproductive rights
• RH for all

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Health Professionals MDGsConclusions

• Planning for the future
• Inclusion in curriculum
• Teaching medical students
• Sensitizing for the future
• Weightage in assessment
• Hands-on approach