What is the Right to Health?
It means that everyone has the Right to be healthy.
We tend to think of the word “health” as “having no disease”, but it is more comprehensive. It includes the good and stable physical and mental condition, as well as a good social condition.
Since when does this Right exist?
Let’s talk about the history.
In the late 1940s, the two below international agreements were adopted and they talk about the Right to Health.
The WHO constitution: “A healthy life is a fundamental Right for all Human beings“.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the Right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being“.
The Right to physical and mental health was also written in The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which was adopted in 1966 and came into force in 1976.
Photo by United Nations
Those international rules are difficult to understand for me……
In short, the Right to a healthy life is mentioned in several international principles.
What is written in the Japanese constitution?
The Japanese constitution also mentions about health that all citizens have the Right to keep a healthy and cultured life.
In addition, it states that the country should make efforts to improve social welfare, social services, and public health.
Do you understand what Public Health is? It is to protect and improve people’s and community’s health. Some examples of Public Health work are shown below.
How is the reality?
Those constitutions show ideals, but the reality is different.
People in some countries don’t have health insurance, and as a consequence, they cannot pay for medical care.
Other countries lack medicines and vaccines in their country, so people cannot get medication when they go to a hospital.
Sadly, ideals and reality are different……
References
– World Health Organization (WHO). Fact sheet: Human rights. 10 December 2022. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/human-rights-and-health
– WHO. Constitution. https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution
– United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human rights. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
– United Nation Information Centre, Tokyo. Universal Declaration of Human rights. https://www.unic.or.jp/activities/humanrights/document/bill_of_rights/
– United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights
