WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI, Umanitanova #2-25: Health is not for sale. European Day against the commercialization of health (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Public health is the "boiled frog" of our times: this principle

described by Noam Chomsky fits well with what has been happening to
health in recent decades: "This is the standard technique for
privatization: you take away the funds, you make sure things don't work,
people get angry and you hand over to private capital". ---- This is the
logic that has permeated health policies in all European countries:
European austerity policies and budget constraints, with the balanced
budget also introduced in our constitution in 2012, have led to the
progressive defunding and weakening of the public health service.

Although the pandemic has shown, with its million and a half deaths, the
consequences of years of cuts to the health system, health continues not
to be a priority objective but a land of conquest for private companies,
insurance companies (now also provided for in national contracts) and
finance.

While the increasingly polluted environment, underpaid and precarious
working conditions, low wages and poverty, poor job security, social
inequalities, high cost of living and high rents worsen the state of
health, access to the care that workers and the population need is
becoming increasingly longer.

Public health remains the Cinderella of investments by all the
governments that have succeeded each other in recent years, which
instead do not skimp on resources to be allocated to wars, to the
increase in military spending and to the support of friendly countries.

And while health spending continues to fall, increasingly approaching 6%
of GDP, the percentage of the health fund allocated to the private
sector that does business on illness and that is increasingly inserted
into the NHS through agreements, accreditations, concessions, contracts
is increasing...

A private sector that does business also by reducing costs for
personnel, for safety, cutting rights and salaries for workers in the
sector.

Today, according to data from the Ministry of Health, 48.6% of hospital
care is private, 84% of residential care is private, 73% of
semi-residential care is private, 82% of rehabilitation care pursuant to
art. 26 is private.

A trend that is spreading across Europe and that has led to the creation
of the "European Network against the Privatization and Commercialization
of Health" since 2012, which recently adopted its new name "European
Network: Health is Not for Sale".

The network includes organizations from various European countries that
share the fight against the commercialization of health, with a vision
of health as a fundamental human right linked to social, environmental
and economic determinants.

For years, the network has been organizing initiatives in several
European countries on April 7, defined by the WHO as International
Health Day, aimed at raising awareness on the following issues:

Sufficient public funding for public health services against commercial
and private drifts, for accessibility to care for all, to improve the
working conditions of those who work in the sector, guaranteeing the
quality of care.

To organize coordinated initiatives on this deadline, an appeal has been
launched so that the forces of those who fight for the right to health
can be united, of which we provide a summary on this page.

Paola Sabatini

https://umanitanova.org/la-salute-non-e-in-vendita-giornata-europea-contro-la-commercializzazione-della-salute/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca