Faced with the “catastrophic consequences of Covid-19”, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, published on Friday 19 February an issue paper entitled ‘Protecting the right to health through inclusive and resilient health care for all’.
It is a tool for use by European governments at a time when the health crisis has served as a wake-up call by “tragically exposing the weaknesses of health care systems strained by years of austerity, economic difficulties and neglect”, says Ms Mijatović.
Over 50 pages, it recalls the most important standards and principles relating to the right to health, identifies key partners that can help States address the deficiencies exacerbated by the health crisis, and provides an analysis of the conditions required to ensure inclusive and resilient health and social security systems. These include qualified staff, adequate funding and above all “leadership and good governance”.
The paper also stresses the need to broaden the perspective to social rights. The Commissioner insists that urgent attention needs to be paid to the social determinants of health, such as social protection, adequate living conditions, education and employment conditions, “as the pandemic has demonstrated how deeply embedded social inequalities result in greater health risks for affected groups”. This is despite the fact that, under international law, States are obliged to guarantee their populations access to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
Link to the document: https://bit.ly/2NKNyqg (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)