UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES OPEN UNIVERSITY
Module Paper Submission Form*
Module number
1
Date of submission
September 1, 2019
Name of student
John Russel Benavidez
Student number
2018-30063
Word count
1049
Title/Topic of paper/essay:
Health is a right, right?
World War II Origins
1948 - The aftermath of World War II has greatly scarred the entire world and it has
become evident that there should be a written document that will protect / uphold the
rights of human beings around the globe hence thru the collective effort of various UN
member countries the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was born. The
UDHR is composed of 30 articles that compose the rights and freedoms we enjoy today.
This has been collated on paper and essential ideals that range from the right to liberty,
having a nationality, freedom from slavery and even owning a property were boldly
declared to be strictly observed.
Health as a Right
According to the UDHR Article 26:
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being
of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, and housing and medical care
and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances
beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children,
whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Ideally, this is to be observed at all times by all member states, no matter how rich or
poor that country is. A Nation should utilize all its resources for the benefit of its citizens
to the highest achievable standard of health and portray it as a basic right of every
human being. Health must be equal to all regardless of gender, religion, social status and
etc.
What are our current Health realities?
In a nutshell, millions of people still needlessly die or suffer in causes that may have been
preventable or may have been intervened by governments:
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Health Access – According to the World Bank and the World Health Organization, at
least half of the world’s population cannot obtain essential health services. Around 800
million people spend at least 10 percent of their household budgets (out of own pocket
expense) on health expenditures for themselves, a sick child or other family member. For
almost 100 million people these expenses are high enough to push them into extreme
poverty, forcing them to survive on just $1.90 or less a day.
Non-Communicable Diseases – The World Health Organization reports that
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people each year, equivalent to 71%
of all deaths globally. Each year, 15 million people die from a NCD between the ages of
30 and 69 years; over 85% of these "premature" deaths occur in low- and middle-income
countries. Cardiovascular diseases account for most NCD deaths, or 17.9 million people
annually, followed by cancers (9.0 million), respiratory diseases (3.9million), and
diabetes (1.6 million).
Infectious Diseases – According to the Global Report for Research for Infectious
Diseases of Poverty, even in the advent of technology and medicine, Infectious diseases
remain key agents of the debilitating poverty afflicting so much of the world today. Each
year these diseases kill almost 9 million people, many of them children under five, and
they also cause enormous burdens through life-long disability.
Children’s Health – (WHO) An estimated 6.3 million children under the age of 15 years
died in 2017. 5.4 million of them were under the age of 5 and 2.5 million of those
children died within the first month of life. This translates into 15 000 under-five deaths
per day. More than half of these early child deaths are due to conditions that could be
prevented or treated with access to simple, affordable interventions. Leading causes of
death in children under-5 years are preterm birth complications, pneumonia, birth
asphyxia, diarrhoea and malaria. Nearly half of these deaths are in newborns, a figure
that will rise as the mortality rate for older infants continues to fall. Children in subSaharan Africa are more than 15 times more likely to die before the age of 5 than
children in high income countries.
Health Equality – The 2011 World Health Organization Report reveals that there is a
36-year gap in life expectancy between countries. A child born in Malawi can expect to
live for only 47 years while a child born in Japan could live for as long as 83 years.
In Chad, every fifth child dies before they reach the age of 5, while in the WHO
European Region, the under-five mortality rate is 13 out of 1000.
Every single day, 21,000 children die before their fifth birthday of pneumonia, malaria,
diarrhea and other diseases. Despite substantial progress in reducing under-five mortality
around the world, children from rural and poorer households remain disproportionately
affected. Children from the poorest 20 percent of households are nearly twice as likely to
die before their fifth birthday as children in the richest 20 percent.
In Afghanistan, Somalia and Chad, the maternal mortality ratio is over 1000 (out of
100,000 live births) while the same average figure for the WHO European Region is 21.
(11) Developing countries account for 99% of annual maternal deaths in the world, with
the decline being the slowest in WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean and African Regions.
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The Intriguing Question
With the above mentioned gargantuan health-related problems, after 71 years of UDHR,
has Health become a right?
The answer is still a yes. The UN Population Division reported that life expectancy has
increased to 70 years worldwide (2015 estimates) and it has increased in all countries.
2016 Data - Healthy Life has been reported to reach up until the age of 63 and life with
disability is only 9 years after that. The chance of dying at a younger age has been
steadily decreasing, which means that the equality of life spans across all people has
increased.
Way forward
WHO states that the poorest of the poor, around the world, have the worst health. Those
at the bottom of the distribution of global and national wealth, those marginalized and
excluded within countries, and countries themselves disadvantaged by historical
exploitation and persistent inequity in global institutions of power and policy-making
present an urgent moral and practical focus for action.
We are long ways to go in realizing a world with a bullet-proof rights-based approach for
health but nothing is impossible for the determined and united human race.
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Declaration: Upon submission of this paper, I declare that I did not copy ideas and
materials without properly citing the authors and the sources. I am aware of the
plagiarism policy of the UPOU and I abide by the University rules and regulations. I
also declare that I did this paper by myself without major assistance from others.
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