Sama

Public Health, Right to Health and Health Care ...

Sama believes that health care services must be available, affordable, and accessible to all including the socially and economically marginalized as a matter of right.

The increasing transformation of comprehensive health care into mere products and the promotion of a highly modernized, privatized health care system in a reality, where there is acute inadequacy of primary health care facilities, have serious implications for people’s accessibility to health care. One of the important reasons for Sama’s concern is the fact that there has been a constant decline in the budget allocation for health especially communicable diseases. For the vast majority of the population, this has meant increase in the incidence of indebtedness and further exacerbation of poverty.

While the growing inequality fostered by globalization dehumanizes large populations, patriarchal value systems and reproductive biology of women place them in a far more vulnerable position. The impact of these factors is more severe on women due to their social, economic and psychological burdens. The question of women’s health is integrally linked with women’s access to and control over resources and their reproductive and productive role in our society.

Sama works on these issues through research and advocacy and through larger groups and networks. Sama is part of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), the Indian chapter of the People’s Health Movement and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) and has been working towards the campaign for the right to health and healthcare to be enshrined as a fundamental right since 2000.

Sama is also a part of the People’s Collective for Economic, Social and Cultural rights – a network working towards achieving the economic social and cultural rights, of which the right to health forms an integral part.