Published November 5, 2013 Dear Editor, We are writing to support the claim made by Mpinga et al. in their article Traditional/alternative medicines and the right to health: Key elements for a convention on global health. In their discussion of the strengths and challenges associated with the use of “non-conventional medicines” (NCMs), the authors describe such therapies as being not only “cultural products, vectors of knowledge, but also a form…
Human rights in patient care: A theoretical and practical framework
Jonathan Cohen and Tamar Ezer Health and Human Rights 15/2 Published December 2013 Abstract The concept of “human rights in patient care” refers to the application of human rights principles to the context of patient care. It provides a principled alternative to the growing discourse of “patients’ rights” that has evolved in response to widespread and severe human rights violations in health settings. Unlike “patients’ rights,” which is rooted in…
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A rights-based approach to indoor air pollution
Jamie Lim, Stephen Petersen, Dan Schwarz, Ryan Schwarz, Duncan Maru Health and Human Rights 15/2 Published December 2013 Abstract Household indoor air pollution from open-fire cookstoves remains a public health and environmental hazard which impacts negatively on people’s right to health. Technologically improved cookstoves designed to reduce air pollution have demonstrated their efficacy in laboratory studies. Despite the tremendous need for such stoves, in the field they have often failed…
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Editorial: The post-2015 development agenda, human rights, evidence, and open-access publishing
Carmel Williams Health and Human Rights 15/2 Published December 2013 In the current planning phase for the post-2015 development agenda, there is guarded optimism that human rights will occupy a more central role than they did in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) facilitated global consultations in 2012 to shape the post-2015 development agenda. Nineteen UN Task Team “thematic think pieces” resulted, most of which…
Recent health and human rights literature
Health and Human Rights 2013, 15/2 Reviews Public Health and Social Justice Martin Donohoe Jossey-Bass (October 2012) ISBN: 111808814X 656 pages $60.00 Reviewed by Daniel R. George, PhD, MSc, and Peter J. Whitehouse, MD, PhD Comedian Stephen Colbert, who plays a faux archconservative on the popular show The Colbert Report, has famously joked, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” So too might this clever turn of phrase apply to the field of…
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Advancing human rights in patient care through higher education in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Tamar Ezer and Judy Overall Health and Human Rights 15/2 Published December 2013 Abstract Background: In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, for society’s most marginalized people, health systems are too often places of violations of basic rights, rather than of treatment and care. At the same time, health practitioners are largely unaware of how to incorporate human rights norms in their work. Additionally, they may face abuses themselves, such as…
Abstract – Advancing human rights in patient care through higher education in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Tamar Ezer and Judy Overall Health and Human Rights 2013, 15/2 Abstract Background: In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, for society’s most marginalized people, health systems are too often places of violations of basic rights, rather than of treatment and care. At the same time, health practitioners are largely unaware of how to incorporate human rights norms in their work. Additionally, they may face abuses themselves, such as unsafe working…
Abstract – Human rights in patient care: A theoretical and practical framework
Jonathan Cohen and Tamar Ezer Health and Human Rights 2013, 15/2 Abstract The concept of “human rights in patient care” refers to the application of human rights principles to the context of patient care. It provides a principled alternative to the growing discourse of “patients’ rights” that has evolved in response to widespread and severe human rights violations in health settings. Unlike “patients’ rights,” which is rooted in a consumer…
Continue reading “Abstract – Human rights in patient care: A theoretical and practical framework”
Human rights in patient care: A themed issue
Tamar Ezer Health and Human Rights 15/2 Published December 2013 A man with mental disabilities is locked up in a mental health facility, forcibly medicated, and held in unhygienic conditions. Hospital staff publicly disclose a patient’s HIV status. A drug user is denied anesthesia during a medical operation. The doctor at a health care facility refuses to treat a sex worker, throwing her out with a gaping wound. Women…
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Advancing human rights in patient care through strategic litigation: Challenging medical confidentiality issues in countries in transition
Susie Talbot Health and Human Rights 15/2 Published December 2013 Abstract The concept of human rights in patient care offers a framework, relevant to both patients and providers, for identifying and addressing human rights violations within a state’s health system. While a range of legal and non-legal mechanisms are available to advance this concept (and, indeed, are generally used to best effect in combination as part of a wider advocacy…