PHR Student Blog

Resources to build your Chapter, educate your community, and lead meaningful advocacy

The National Student Program has launched a website dedicated to resources for students, residents, and young professionals who are interested in advocacy based on PHR’s human rights investigations.

To educate your campus or community, refer to the PHR Student Chapter Toolkit for detailed information about how to plan and lead an advocacy campaign, host educational events, and more.

Use the issue-based PHR Toolkits to lead education and advocacy:

Access to Essential Medicines

The UN Working Group on Access to Essential Medicines opened its report on Essential Medicines with the assertion that “The lack of access to life-saving and health-supporting medicines for an estimate 2 billion poor people stands as a direct contradiction to the fundamental principle of health as a human right.”

Using clinical skills to defend human rights: Asylum and Detention

Physicians for Human Rights’ Asylum Network is a community of hundreds of health professionals who offer pro bono physical and psychological evaluations to document evidence of torture and persecution for men and women fleeing danger in their home countries. As mentioned in a recent post, the Asylum Network at Physicians for Human Rights conducted 317 evaluations during the 2010-2011 academic year. 10% of these evaluations were shadowed by medical students and residents through student-run asylum clinics.

Transforming health professional education: Health and Human Rights Education

Over the course of their careers, every health professional will be confronted with patients who have endured human rights violations. However, few medical and public health schools have mainstream courses to help prepare students to deal with this effectively. Students and faculty are working together to introduce new courses and promote Health and Human Rights Education.

Prioritzing the Patient: Medical Professionalism

Medical professionalism is the basis of medicine’s contract with society. It demands placing the interests of patients above those of the physician, setting and maintaining standards of competence and integrity, and providing expert advice to society on matters of health. As discussed in a previous post, there is a strong human rights basis for the integrity of medical professionalism and for prioritizing the needs of the patient.

Domestic Health Equity and Ethnic Disparities: Access to Health in Massachusetts

This Toolkit examines health disparities and health reform through the case of Massachusetts’ health reform and its relationship to federal health reform.

Other recent resources that may be of interest:

• Doctors imprisoned in Bahrain: Bahrain: Free the docs!
• Crimes against humanity in Burma: Life Under the Junta

The East African Student Health and Human Rights Leadership Institute was kicked off with a keynote by Uganda’s Minister of Health, the Honorable Stephen Malinga. He expressed his passion for medicine, which he called a priesthood. Dr. Malinga spoke of incorporating a health and human rights framework in Uganda in order protect marginalized populations. This remains particularly important because Uganda had many human rights violations under Idi Amin.

Dr. Malinga highlighted many of the problems in Uganda’s health sector, describing the health worker shortage and explaining how better pay and conditions entice health professionals to other nations in Africa or across the globe. He emphasized that health professionals need to be paid a good salary. The average salary for a Ugandan doctor is about 500,000 shillings a month (about $250), and this amount is not enough for physicians to make ends meet. He said doctors should be paid 1-2 million shillings a month. Dr. Malinga also described a need for better infrastructure and hospitals to improve working conditions and patient care.

The Health Minister also spoke of an underfunded health budget consisting of 9.6% of national budget, when 13.2% is the recommended minimum. He lamented a too-great reliance on foreign funds. Though Dr. Malinga did not mention this, there is a history of corrupt leaders and organizations mismanaging health funds intended for the sick and poor. In 2005, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria withdrew its grants because of misappropriation of billions of shillings. An ex-Ugandan health minister, Jim Muhwezi, is currently being investigated over embezzlement allegations linked to mismanagement of Global Fund monies.

Dr. Malinga mentioned that Uganda also needs more money for medicines.

The situation is very serious. There have been out-of-stocks of essential medicines documented as early as October last year. Only last month did the media pick up on this situation. The Action Group for Health, Human Rights, and HIV/AIDS, which worked with PHR and student leaders to organize the leadership institute, played a pivotal role in the Stop Stock-Outs Campaign that brought the issue to the forefront. As Dr. Malinga briefly mentioned needing more money for medicines, we passed around one of the national newspapers that had published Justin List’s press statement that day.

In the afternoon, each nation’s delegation presented on health and human rights challenges facing their country. The drug shortage, lack of affordable or available vaccinations for health professionals and gender inequality were some of the major issues the students currently face in their health sectors. We spent time sharing challenges and opportunities for health rights advocacy.

A theme Dr. Malinga hinted about was carried on throughout the entire conference. That is, that health care is a noble profession, a calling. Of all people, health professionals should be dedicated to a health and human rights framework of thinking and acting, so they may use their power to protect the underprivileged. If we incorporate such a framework into our local action, we’ll also be best equipped to support each other globally.

What an amazing day Wednesday was!

We began by visiting Sandra Kiapi at the office of Action Group for Health, Human Rights, and HIV/AIDS (AGHA). AGHA is a NGO that was founded in 2003. They have several advocacy campaigns and community-based research projects that tackle human rights issues as they relate to health, with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS. One of these is the Stop Stock-Outs Campaign. AGHA also continues to promote accountability and transparency in the spending of PEPFAR and Global Fund monies, which has been difficult since the local culture has been to keep budget information away from the public eye.

Sandra had a lot to say about the HIV/AIDS Bill, which currently is in Parliament. She described loop holes, and she said the bill really needed more compelling language to ensure that states provide drugs. The public already pays 30% taxes, and most of them have no other disposable income to afford private healthcare. 30% of Ugandans receive healthcare through religious NGOs. 2-10% of Ugandans receive private healthcare. The other 60% need state assistance—yet the current bill has no provisions for their health services.

I was really excited to talk to Rose, Patricia and Ruth at the Uganda Human Rights Commission, a quasi-governmental body which was established under the Ugandan constitution in 1995. At the beginning, their biggest focus was bringing justice to victims of torture and upholding the rule of law. UHRC also tries to promote the Right to Health by educating both government officials through seminars and the general public through public radio. AGHA and UHRC have worked together on AGHA’s Stigma and Discrimination Campaign, for which AGHA trains health professionals and health professional students on health and human rights. Some of the students we’ll be meeting in the next few days, leaders in the Students for Equity in Health Care (SEHC), have been active in helping with this work. UHRC and AGHA both work on advocating for health workforce rights on many levels. Currently, there is only 1 health care worker per 22,000 Ugandan people.

UHRC also works on transitional justice and reconciliation, as well as reintegration of LRA child soldiers—all issues that have been incredibly trying for both the Commission and nation in general. I highly recommend watching Uganda Rising and Invisible Children on these issues.

We also met on Wednesday with Julia Spiegel from the ENOUGH Project, a program of the Center for American Progress with a mission to build a permanent constituency to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. She’s been working directly with victims, military and officials in Northern Uganda and the Congo and has been using insight from her research to advocate for high level policy and holistic action to end the LRA’s crimes against women, children and the region in general. Check out the ENOUGH Project’s Raise Hope for the Congo campaign. For all you Law and Order fans, the Project also helped write a new episode that tells survivors’ stories to educate the public and humanize the issue.

We ended by meeting a physician-advocate who does not wait but acts, even when funds or resources are unavailable. He is one of the world’s most inspirational pioneers in providing HIV/AIDS treatment for all, Peter Mugyenyi, MD. He was the first person to bring ARV treatment to Africa, and he was involved in the initial planning of PEPFAR. He is the director of the Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC), one of the largest PEPFAR funded programs in all of Africa.

The JCRC provides HIV care and treatment to over 60,000 patients in both urban and rural Uganda. About twenty percent of these patients are enrolled in the clinical research at the center. JCRC is the smoothest-running, most high-tech clinical, epidemiological and treatment-based research center we had ever seen. It was the first center to test an HIV vaccine in 1998, and the lab continues to study HIV and opportunistic infections in novel ways. Dr. Mugyenyi has about 1,000 patients under his personal care, and he also is Principal Investigator to seven research projects at the institution. He continues to maintain and enroll patients that need care, despite a Uganda PEPFAR mandate to halt the treatment of new patients.

Meeting with activists from these organizations gave me a lot to think about and process. These organizations deal with tremendous obstacles in creating sustainable change and fighting for the rights of people that are often poor and powerless. Yet, they trudge on, knowing that, though change does not come over night, progress does. These are not people that will wait for better conditions to begin fighting for human rights. They just do it.

(Cross-posted on Health Rights Advocate)

Greetings from California! My name is Arnav Mehta. I’m a first year MD/PhD student at UCLA/Caltech and one of the founders of PHR’s UCLA chapter. It’s an exciting time here in LA as we have a number of great events lined up and are getting a lot of student and faculty support.

The UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and USC Keck School of Medicine chapters are constantly finding new ways to collaborate, and have organized the Global Health Awareness Week (GHAW), a series of events highlighting key issues in global health and strategic efforts to address them.

USC will host the kickoff event, the 2009 Ride for Global Health, on April 3^rd. The following week, we will collect donated medical texts for physicians and students in Africa, hold panel discussions (including one on student activism), and screen several documentary films, such as “Pills, Profit, and Protest,” a film on access to essential medicines as a human right. In addition to these events, USC member Neil Chawla is currently en route to Kampala, Uganda, to help coordinate the very first East African Student Health and Human Rights Leadership Institute!

The UCLA PHR chapter has been actively educating community members about the HIV and Hepatitis Prevention Act (HR179) to remove the ban on federal funding for needle exchange. Towards the end of the GHAW, On April 8, we have planned a discussion led by Dr. Roger Detels, a world-renowned expert on HIV/AIDS and injecting drug use, to be followed by an outdoor rally led by local advocates to increase awareness and support for HR179. We have already collected several petitions and video testimonials from medical students and faculty at UCLA, and plan to continue this during the rally. Over this next week, I and a few other community members will also be going to meet Senators Boxer and Feinstein and Representatives Berman and Waxman to discuss the reauthorization of PEPFAR and funding allocations.

The USC and UCLA chapters will be collaborating once again on June 5, 2009 to help run the First Annual Los Angeles Health and Human Rights conference. This will be another great chance to connect with local community members as well as faculty from both schools, and remind ourselves of what needs to be done to ensure health as a human right.

Loyola University School of Medicine student, and former PHR Chapter Leader, Justin List, is putting his human rights advocacy skills to work in Uganda.  Justin has been working with the Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS(AGHA) to call attention to the drug stock-out that Uganda is facing right now.  AGHA is PHR’s partner group in the ground in Uganda and has been working on the stock-out issue for several years now. The major Ugandan newspaper, The New Vision, carried a news story on Friday after a press conference organized by AGHA and its partners.

UGANDA is facing a shortage of essential drugs in Government health facilities, according to the latest survey by Uganda Country Working Group. The study, conducted over the past four years, show that 32-50% of essential medicines to treat common diseases like malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS, TB, diabetes and hypertension are not readily available.

Consequently, a consortium of five Ugandan health civil society organisations on Thursday launched a nationwide campaign, code named Stop Stock-Outs. Their partners are Action for Development, Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS and Alliance for Integrated Development and Empowerment, Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development and National Forum of People Living with HIV/AIDS Networks in Uganda.

Justin is in Uganda  working on TB Clinical trials where he has seen first hand the effects of the drug stock out on his patients. He released his own statement that was picked up by the New Vision for an article on the potential impacts of the TB drug shortage.

List warns that patients with interruptions in TB treatment are at risk of developing multi-drug resistant strains of TB, which are difficult to treat with first line TB drugs Isoniazid, Rifampin, Pyrazinamide and Ethambutol, currently used in Uganda.

“Worldwide, multi-drug resistant TB is more difficult to treat and the drugs are more expensive. It is, therefore, in everyone’s interest to have uninterrupted treatment,” List adds.

This is a fantastic example of the power of human rights advocacy by health professional students. Justin and the local coalition have used their human rights advocacy skills to identify a human rights violation—a lack of access to essential medicines. They worked to  document the cause and impact through scientific investigation. And now they are using tried and true advocacy tactics to raise the visibility of the issue and spur government action.

As I hear more from Justin about the results of his advocacy, I’ll post again here on the blog.  Justin is the 2009 IFMSA Anti-TB Regional Coordinator for the Americas and has created some excellent advocacy materials for World TB day March 24. You can also follow Justin’s work in Uganda on his blog HealingNumenor.

This week, PHR is hosting Dr. Peter Mugyenyi in Washington, DC, for a series of community presentations and meetings with Congress and the Administration. This is part of PHR’s Global AIDS Month of Action which involves students, health professionals, and PHR staff advocating for a fully funded PEPFAR II.

For some background on Dr Mugyenyi, check out these recent posts here, here and here on the Health Rights Advocate blog.

Yesterday Dr. Mugyenyi shared the stage at an event with Ambassador Mark Dybul, former head of the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator where he directed PEPFAR. The event was filmed and is available as a podcast from Georgetown University. Dr. Mugyenyi is an amazing speaker who is able to clearly state the problems we face in the global AIDS crisis and articulate the solutions we need to implement right now. I encourage you to view the entire video. It’s only one hour long, but here are a few of the highlights:

• @ 20:00 minutes, Dr Mugyenyi desribes the importance of treatment, and what he calls a “recipe for chaos”
• @ 30:00 minutes, Dr Mugyenyi talks about the need for universal access to care and strengthening the overall health system while fighting diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria
• @ 36:30 minutes, Dr Mugyenyi highlights the necessity of integrating family planning and reproductive health services with HIV/AIDS and women’s social services in order to address the feminization of AIDS

I encourage you to share some of these highlights or the entire video during the AIDS Week of Action. If you are looking for a speaker for the AIDS Week of Action, you can use this video of Dr. Mugyenyi as virtual speaker. All you’ll need is a room with a projector and internet connection.

PHR has partnered with University Coalitions for Global Health to expand the Week of Action beyond HIV/AIDS issues.  Check you this really cool video UCGH created to publicize the Week of Action.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z817guAYFyc[/youtube]

UCGH has also posted an organizing guide with issues resources on Access to Essential Medicines, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Women’s Rights, Health Care for Health Workers and HIV/AIDS. UCGH is made up of students groups like PHR that are committed to advancing global health issues. We encourage teaming up with UCGH coaltion members to co-host events and combine resources during the Week of Action to create a robust program of education and advocacy.

A New York Times Editorial today echoes the concerns of the Global AIDS community that funding for essential programs could be in jeopardy.

The international AIDS community is buzzing with anxiety over unconfirmed reports that the Obama administration may hold down American financing for international AIDS programs that need greatly increased support. We hope that the new budget blueprint to be released this week will leave enough room to grant these and other vital health programs the money they need to care for millions of sick people and to prevent the spread of additional disease around the world.

PHR student chapters played a big part in winning the reauthorization of PEPFAR2 at an unprecedented $48 billion dollar funding level. As we’ve written here before, even under the pressure of the global financial crisis, we cannot scale back our fight against the global AIDS crisis.

The prospective of an underfunded PEPFAR2 makes the Global Health and AIDS Week of Action even more important. We have an opportunity to show President Obama and Congress that scaling back US commitments to Global AIDS is not an option we, or the millions of people living with AIDS, are willing to consider. During the Week of Action, we are asking all student chapters to meet with their member of Congress at their Congressional district or state office and ask them to join us in the call to “Stop AIDS Now!” and provide robust funding to AIDS and global health programs. We’ll provide the training and logistical support to all students who want to participate. Contact me today to set up a meeting.

We’ve posted a Week of Action Organizing Guide on this blog. It includes:

• resources to help plan educational and advocacy activities on your campus
• issue specific advocacy resources
• additional planning and educational resources

If you have any questions about the Week of Action or meeting with your member of Congress contact me.

As PHR CEO Frank Donaghue said at the conference, “It’s time to be unreasonable” and use your power as human rights advocates. Below are some of the most important advocacy opportunities for students to participate in. In addition, presenter materials from the conference will be available online soon along, with photos and video. Events with downloadable materials materials will be marked on the conference calendar with a green dot and a paper clip ().

Campaign: Colleagues at Risk
Our Colleagues at Risk Afternoon Panel discussed the case of Drs Kamiar and Arash Alaei, world renowned Iranian HIV/AIDS doctors who were arrested and have been held in an Iranian Prison since June, 2008. They have been convicted of organizing a velvet revolution. What they did was collaborate with the international scientific community to share best practices on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs. That’s not a crime, its good medicine.

• Sign this petition calling for their release.
• Ask 5 friends to sign the petition.
• Participate in our Photo Solidarity Petition.
• Ask the Dean of your University to release a statement calling for their release, similar to the one by Keynote Speaker Julio Frenk.

Health Action AIDS Campaign
During the opening Keynote, Stephen Lewis highlighted the Feminization of the AIDS pandemic and called on us to solve it. One solution is the rights-based approach outlined in PHR’s Platform, Health Rights=Healthy Women.

• Ask your University to endorse the Platform.
• Write a Letter to the editor about the Health Action AIDS Campaign’s priorities of ending the ban on needle exchange, lifting the HIV+ Travel Ban, or repealing the Global Gag Rule.

Darfur Survival Campaign
Call on Secretary of State Clinton to act quickly to save lives in Darfur by signing this petition and following up with a phone call. Ask 5 of your friends and colleagues to join you in this action.

Raise the visibility of Physicians for Human Rights
Send a press release to your Campus Newspaper and Campus PR office about your participation in the conference. Adapt this sample press release for your school and check out the Using the Media guide of the Student Chapter Toolbox.