The Right To Health and health care

The right to health means that everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which included access to all medical services, sanitation, adequate food, decent housing, healthy working conditions and a clean environment.

The right to health care means that hospitals, clinics, medicines and doctor’s services must be accessible, available, acceptable, and of good quality for everyone, on an equitable basis, where and when needed.

Health care must be financed and delivered in a non-discriminatory way that enables the participation of individuals and communities, provides access to information, ensures transparency of institutions and processes, and has effective mechanisms to hold both private sector and government agencies accountable. Health care is a public good, shared by everyone, not a commodity or privilege.

The purpose of a health care system is to protect everyone’s health. Its design must be guided by the following key human rights standards:

• Universal access: Access to health care must be universal, guaranteed for all on an equitable basis. Health care must be affordable and comprehensive for everyone, and physically accessible where and when needed.
• Affordability: Health care must be affordable for everyone, with charges based on the ability to pay, regardless of how health care delivery is financed
• Equity: Health care must be distributed equitably, with resources allocated and used according to needs and health risks.
• Comprehensiveness: Health care must include all screening, treatments, therapies and drugs needed to preserve and restore health, including reproductive health.
• Availability: Adequate health care infrastructure (e.g. hospitals, community health facilities, trained health care professionals), goods (e.g. drugs, equipment) and services (e.g. primary care, mental health) must be available in all geographical areas and to all communities.
• Acceptability and Dignity: Health care institutions and providers must respect dignity, provide culturally appropriate care, be responsive to needs based on gender, age, culture, language, and different ways of life and abilities. They must respect medical ethics and protect confidentiality.
• Quality: All health care must be medically appropriate and of good quality, guided by quality standards and control mechanisms, and provided in a timely, safe, and patient-centered manner.

The following principles, which apply to all human rights, are also essential elements of a health care system:

• Non-discrimination: Health care must be accessible and provided without discrimination (in intent or effect) based on health status, race, ethnicity, age, sex, sexuality, disability, language, religion, national origin, income, or social status.
• Information and Transparency: Health information must be easily accessible for everyone, enabling people to protect their health and claim quality health services. Institutions that organize, finance or deliver health care must operate in a transparent way.
• Participation: Individuals and communities must be able to take an active role in decisions that affect their health, including in the organization and implementation of health care services.
• Accountability: Private companies and public agencies must be held accountable for protecting the right to health care through enforceable standards, regulations, and independent compliance monitoring.

The Right to Health is protected in:

The United Nations Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, see general comment 14

See NESRI fact sheets on the Right to Health.