Human rights of drug users according to public health professionals in Brazil

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla AA Ventura ◽  
Isabel AC Mendes ◽  
Maria A Trevizan ◽  
Driéli P Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Health Care Team ◽  
Public Health Care ◽  
Care Practice ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Right

Health is a basic human right, and drug use represents a severe influence on people’s health. This qualitative study aimed to understand how health professionals in a public health-care team working with drug users in a city of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, perceive the human rights of these users and how these rights are being respected in health care. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 10 health professionals at the service under analysis. A thematic analysis of the interviews reveals the professionals’ difficulty to define the concept of human right and contextualize these rights in their work environment. A deeper understanding of the right to health, however, represents an important premise for a more humanized care practice in health services to drug users.

Principle-driven virtual care practice to ensure quality and accessibility

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-84
Author(s):  
Kendell Ho ◽  
Ken Harris ◽  
Toni Leamon
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Professional Community ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Care Practice ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Virtual Care ◽  
The Right

COVID-19 has accelerated the use of telehealth or virtual care (VC) as an alternative form of health care delivery. Clearly, VC provides unprecedented convenience and timeliness for patients seeking care from their health professionals. As a result, a substantial increase in telehealth providers is occurring, and the Canadian government is investing millions to support digital health care treatments and telehealth services. However, it is vital that the health professional community carefully examine the quality of care being delivered digitally and determine when it is appropriate to use VC as an alternative to face-to-face care. This article highlights some principles for health policymakers, health professionals, and health consumers to consider to ensure that VC is used appropriately and ethically for the right health conditions and in the right contexts.

Conscientious Objection in Reproductive Health Care: Analysis of Pichon and Sajous v. France

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Lamačková
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Reproductive Health Care ◽  
Health Care Context ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis article explores the issue of conscientious objection invoked by health professionals in the reproductive and sexual health care context and its impact on women's ability to access health services. The right to exercise conscientious objection has been recognized by many international and European scholars as being derived from the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It is not, however, an absolute right. When the exercise of conscientious objection conflicts with other human rights and fundamental freedoms, a balance must be struck between the right to conscientious objection and other affected rights such as the right to respect for private life, the right to equality and non-discrimination, and the right to receive and impart information. Particularly in the reproductive health care context, states that allow health professionals to exercise conscientious objection must accommodate this in such a way that its exercise does not compromise women's access to health services. This article analyses the European Court of Human Rights' decision on admissibility in Pichon and Sajous v. France (2001) and argues that a balancing approach should be applied in cases of conscientious objection in the sexual and reproductive health care context.

scholarly journals A Human Rights-Based Approach to Maternal and Child Health in Ethiopia: Does it Matter to Promote Health Equities?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solomon Tekle Abegaz
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Maternal And Child Health ◽  
Health Care Services ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Care Services ◽  
The Right ◽  
And Child Health

A rights-based approach to health helps to address health equity gaps. While several aspects of health as a human right exist, this chapter highlights particular indicators relevant to shaping a human rights approach to maternal and child health in Ethiopia. These indicators include recognition of the right to health; national health plan; accessible and acceptable health-care services; accountability; and a civil society that draws on the agency of vulnerable groups. Probing the extent to which the Ethiopian health system includes these features, this chapter identifies that the Federal Constitution does not adequately recognize maternal and child health as a human right. While identifying the positive developments of increased access to women’s and children’s health-care services in Ethiopia, the chapter also charts problems that limit further improvement, including health workers’ inability from making the right health-care decisions; extreme gaps in ensuring accountability; and a restrictive law that restrains social mobilization for a proper health rights movement. The chapter concludes by providing recommendations to the government of Ethiopia that addressing these problems using a rights-based approach offers an alternative pathway for the progressive realization of the right to health of women and children, and it thereby improves health inequities in the country.

Human Rights and Public Health Ethics

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
S. Matthew Liao
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Basic Health ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
The Right

This chapter relates human rights to public health ethics and policies by discussing the nature and moral justification of human rights generally, and the right to health in particular. Which features of humanity ground human rights? To answer this question, as an alternative to agency and capabilities approaches, the chapter offers the “fundamental conditions approach,” according to which human rights protect the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. The fundamental conditions approach identifies “basic health”—the adequate functioning of the various parts of our organism needed for the development and exercise of the fundamental capacities—as the object of a human right. A human right to basic health entails human rights to the essential resources for promoting and maintaining basic health, including adequate nutrition, basic health care, and basic education. Dutybearers include every able person in appropriate circumstances, as well as governments and government agencies, private philanthropic foundations, and transnational corporations.

A Right to Health Care

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavlos Eleftheriadis
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Right To Health Care ◽  
The Right ◽  
International Conventions ◽  
Special Case

Do we have a legal and moral right to health care against others? There are international conventions and institutions that say emphatically yes, and they summarize this in the expression of “the right to health,” which is an established part of the international human rights canon. The International Covenant on Social and Economic Rights outlines this as “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health,” but declarations such as this remain tragically unfulfilled. According to recent figures, roughly two billion people lack access to essential drugs or to primary health care. Millions are afflicted by infections and illnesses that are easily avoidable or treatable. In the developing world many children die or grow stunted and damaged for lack of available treatments. Tropical diseases receive little or no attention by the major pharmaceutical companies’ research departments. Is this a massive violation of the right to health? And if so, why does it attract so little attention? Is it because our supposed commitment to human rights and the rule of law is hypocritical and hollow? Or is it because the right to health is a special case of a right, so that these tragedies are no violation at all? Jennifer Prah Ruger summarized this puzzle when she wrote: “one would be hard pressed to find a more controversial or nebulous human right than the right to health.” In this essay I discuss three different theories of a right to health care. I conclude by offering my own reconstruction of one such theory.

scholarly journals Global Burden of Violence and Other Human Rights Violations Against Sex Workers

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-59
Author(s):  
Elena Argento ◽  
Kay Thi Win ◽  
Bronwyn McBride ◽  
Kate Shannon
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Structural Determinants ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Health And Human Rights ◽  
The Right

AbstractGlobally, sex workers experience a disproportionate burden of violence and human rights violations linked to criminalisation, punitive law enforcement, and lack of labour protections. Social injustices including poor working conditions, violence and victimisation, police harassment, and discrimination constitute severe violations of sex workers’ health, labour and human rights, and abuses of their freedom and dignity. Policymakers, researchers, and international bodies increasingly recognise violence as a critical public health and human rights concern among the general population; however, human rights violations against sex workers remain largely overlooked within international agendas on violence prevention and in human rights conventions. This chapter provides an overview of the global literature on violence against sex workers, other human rights violations, and drivers of elevated violence and rights inequities across settings. In addition to synthesising global research findings, this chapter features contributions and case studies from community partners in Asia Pacific. Guided by a structural determinants framework, and in recognising the right to live and work free from violence as a human right, this chapter provides an evidence base pertaining to violence against sex workers towards that informs the development of policy and public health interventions to uphold human rights among sex workers worldwide.

scholarly journals A Human Right Approach of Right to Health During Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 176-179
Author(s):  
Dr. Prakruthi A R
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
The Right

The right to live isn’t the absence of death; it’s living a life with good health and human dignity.’ Human rights are fundamentally linked to global health in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Human rights law guarantees everyone the right to the highest attainable standard of health and obligates governments to take steps to prevent threats to public health and to provide medical care to those who need it. The language and principles of human rights relate to the rights that support the survival and basic wellbeing of communities and individuals, including their rights to life, health and an adequate standard of living. Human rights law also recognizes that in the context of serious public health threats and public emergencies threatening the life of the Nation, restrictions on some rights can be justified when they have a legal basis, are strictly necessary, based on scientific evidence and neither arbitrary nor discriminatory in application, of limited duration, respectful of human dignity, subject to review, and proportionate to achieve the objective. The scale and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic clearly rises to the level of a public health threat that could justify restrictions on certain rights, such as those that result from the imposition of quarantine or isolation limiting freedom of movement. At the same time, careful attention to human rights such as non-discrimination and human rights principles such as transparency and respect for human dignity can foster an effective response amidst the turmoil and disruption that inevitably results in times of crisis and limit the harms that can come from the imposition of overly broad measures that do not meet the criteria.

Human Rights and Patients’ Privacy in UK Hospitals

2001 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Woogara
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right

The European Convention on Human Rights has been incorporated into UK domestic law. It gives many rights to patients within the National Health Service (NHS). This article explores the concept of patients’ right to privacy. It stresses that privacy is a basic human right, and that its respect by health professionals is vital for a patient’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. I argue that health professionals can violate patients’ privacy in a variety of ways. For example: the right to enjoy their property; the right to protect their medical and personal information as confidential; the right to expect treatment with dignity during intimate care; and the right to control their personal space and territory. Some preliminary evidence indicates that many health care practitioners, including nurses, are presently unaware of the articles of the Convention and the implications of the Human Rights Act 1998. In order to prevent litigation for breaches of patients’ privacy, it is advocated that universities and other educational institutions, the Government and NHS trusts should help to produce a clear educational strategy and protocols so that students and practitioners are well informed in this field. Although 41 European countries are presently the signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the UK, it is important to stress that the principles discussed in this article are applicable world-wide.

Human Rights and Public Health Ethics

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
S. Matthew Liao ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Basic Health ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
The Right

This paper relates human rights to public health ethics and policies by discussing the nature and moral justification of human rights generally, and the right to health in particular. Which features of humanity ground human rights? To answer this question, as an alternative to agency and capabilities approaches, the paper offers the “fundamental conditions approach,” according to which human rights protect the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. The fundamental conditions approach identifies “basic health”—the adequate functioning of the various parts of our organism needed for the development and exercise of the fundamental capacities—as the object of a human right. A human right to basic health entails human rights to the essential resources for promoting and maintaining basic health, including adequate nutrition, basic health care, and basic education. Duty bearers include every able person in appropriate circumstances, as well as governments and government agencies, private philanthropic foundations, and transnational corporations.

scholarly journals Occupational citizenship

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lise Rosendal Østergaard
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Material Deprivation ◽  
Public Health Care ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Agitation ◽  
Professional Health

Health workers are an overlooked category in the growing literature on health and citizenship. In this article I describe a 2012–2013 nationwide conflict in the public health care sector in Burkina Faso to explore how ideas about citizenship were mobilized in a situation of political agitation. I examine how public health care is done in a context of material deprivation, technological shortage, and great demand from the population. Three distinct repertoires of practice, routine, and bureaucracy are identified, through which health workers strive to make meaning of their work and engage in the practice of public health care. Drawing on these findings, I argue that adopting a citizenship framework offers an opportunity to improve our understanding of the multiple ways in which health workers manage the difficulties related to being (health professionals) and doing (professional health care) in rural Burkina Faso.

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