Right to Health Case Studies
The following case studies concretely illustrate key elements of the Right to Health in application.
Right to Health Element: Available, accessible, acceptable health facilities, goods and services that are appropriate and of good quality
Case Study: Accountability Through Monitoring
Care Peru's Improving the Health of the Poor, A Rights Based Approach
Improving the health of the poor and marginalized in countries such as Peru will not be achieved through technical interventions and provision of funding alone. Significant, sustainable change can only happen if the poor have a much greater involvement in shaping policies, practices and programs, and by ensuring what is agreed upon actually happens.To this end, CARE Peru's Health Rights Program, which commenced in January 2004, seeks to improve the health of the poor and marginalized in Peru through the improvement of the relationship between Peruvian society and the State and through the creation of greater accountability on the part of health workers. A significant accountability mechanism has been the strengthening of citizen monitoring of health services, in which social accountability mechanisms were installed in order to effectively monitor implementation of the policies and also to promote participation.
Women community leaders made visits to health care centers and findings were reported back to the health team. Those who conducted this monitoring have noted a distinct improvement in the quality of health service provision. As a direct result of this program, strategies to make health sector policies and institutions respond to, protect and promote the health rights of the poor and marginalized have been developed and strengthened. Both civil society and health workers have a greater understanding of health rights, and participatory mechanisms for planning, provision and evaluation of health services have been developed.
Right to Health Element: Progressive Realization
Case Study: A National Plan for the Promotion of LGBT Citizenship and Human Rights: Brazil
In the 1988 Brazilian Constitution there were no laws regarding the promotion of LGBT citizenship and human rights. However, numerous cities and several states had developed laws that promoted LGBT rights related to same-sex unions, divorces, adoptions and inheritance, as well as proposed constitutional amendments to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Despite these favorable environments, laws alone were insufficient to ensure protection and promotion of rights of LGBT individuals and groups. The First LGBT National Conference, in which 1,000 people participated, was arranged by the Brazilian president in June 2008 with 550 different approved proposals for public policies related to LGBT groups.
The principle aim of the conference was to propose the guidelines for the implementation of public policies related to LGBTs, and the development of a national plan to promote their citizenship and human rights. To facilitate the process, an organizing committee was comprised of government ministries, the Parliamentary Front for LGBT Citizenship, and representatives of the LGBT movement.
A main outcome of the national conference was Ministerial Ordinance No. 432, which directs the Government's Special Department for Human Rights to establish an interministerial technical commission. Its purpose is to draw up a draft version of the National Plan for the Promotion of the Citizenship and Human Rights of LGBT (Article 1), to be based on the proposals approved at the Conference.
Right to Health Element: Participation
Case Study: The Seven Towers Monitoring Group, Belfast housing
Due to unacceptable housing conditions of the Seven Towers housing complex in Belfast, a Participation Practice of Rights (PPR) - a non-institutional mechanism for participation - was initiated, in which a human rights-based approach was used to address social/economic inequalities.
Communities set their own indicators of very specific issues with health/housing, and tried to change the response of governing powers to elicit proper and effective change. They implemented a framework for engagement. Although their mechanism for participation was not welcomed by the Northern Island Housing Executive (NIHE), there is a tensioned cooperation with the group, as the two entities have only really engaged when pressure is applied through campaigning. However, it is this engagement that has pressured the NIHE to improve the Seven Towers housing complex.
Right to Health Element: Accountability
Case Study: The Access to Drugs: South Africa
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Save Our Babies, and the Children's Rights Centre sought to reverse unconstitutional policy that HIV drugs were not made available to HIV pregnant women who gave birth in the public health sector and their babies.
The claim was brought to the Pretoria High Court and judgment found in favor of TAC. However, the government refused to comply with the ruling. In July 2002, the Constitutional Court held unanimously that the government's policy had not met its constitutional obligations to provide people with access to health care services in a manner that was reasonable and took account of pressing social needs. This ruling demonstrated that both the judicial and social accountability mechanisms have had an impact on policy making, as the TAC empowered lobbying, advocating and undertaking social mobilization.
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