Federal funding for health is in jeopardy.
In the recent State of the Union address, President Obama announced a five-year freeze on domestic spending (aka non-security discretionary spending). On Jan. 25th, the House of Representatives approved a resolution to reduce non-security spending to 2008 levels.
We cannot balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable.
To avoid losing the progress that targeted spending has made in saving lives and improving health outcomes, the Senate should pass an omnibus bill that provides slight increases to FY10 levels for the majority of global health accounts. Last year’s efforts to pass an omnibus bill died in December when it became clear that 60 votes were not available to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster, the Washington Post reported. The federal budget is currently running on a Continuing Resolution that expires March 4, 2011. If the Senate fails to sustain or increase funding, this will have a direct impact on health outcomes in 2011 and the years to come.
An arbitrary freeze on spending is short-sighted and ineffective. The money saved will not adequately address the federal deficit. For example, foreign aid is a small fraction of the US budget. The International Affairs budget makes up about 1% of the overall federal budget, yet was able to fund the treatment of AIDS, TB, and malaria for millions of people. This investment is humanitarian, diplomatic, and economically sound, as it allows people to continue working and reduces the likelihood of transmission, and hence avoids increased health care costs.
A return to 2008 levels would dramatically reduce funding for the Global Health and Child Survival USAID Account (USAID-GHCS). January marked some milestones that offer a glimpse of the urgency of the need for continued investment in global health. This month was the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti and the six month anniversary of the floods in Pakistan. Yesterday, the WHO Director General, Margaret Chan, commented that increased funding is necessary and asked,
“Will progress stall? Will powerful innovations, like the meningitis vaccine, like the vaccines for preventing diarrheal disease and pneumonia, like the new diagnostic test for tuberculosis, fall short of reaching their potential? Public health has been on a winning streak. But will we still have the resources to maintain, if not accelerate, these gains?“
Domestic health is also at risk. Most insiders anticipate a healthcare reform repeal vote in the Senate before long.
Please call your Senator to share your opinion. You can use this script:
I am a voter in your state. I urge you to sustain or expand funding for global and domestic health because it’s a smart investment. When it comes to health, short-term funding cuts will have long-term repercussions. We need to continue the work to make health care affordable and accessible, make prevention a priority, and ensure that women have access to the reproductive and other health care services they need. As a member of Physicians for Human Rights, I will be keeping an eye on how you vote on this issue.
You can find your senator here.
Please report your call here.
Posted in: Action Alerts, advocacy, aid agencies, aids, barack obama, congress, national program, Obama, obama administration, right to health, senate, Take Action, united states, WHO, women, world health organization
Tagged: Action Alert, global health, health reform
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The UN reported last week that six aid groups have suspended operations in eastern Chad. Nearly 300,000 Darfuri refugees have fled across the the Sudan-Chad border to escape violence in Darfur. Among the groups suspending operations are the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which reported the kidnapping of a French ICRC worker and five Chadian colleagues near the Sudanese border this week, and French NGO Solidarités, which lost a Chadian employee earlier this month.
As reported by PHR investigators in Nowhere to Turn: Failure to Protect, Support, and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women, Darfuri refugees in the Farchana Camp in eastern Chad are entirely reliant on the aid provided by UN and humanitarian agencies and face daily threats to their health and security. A September report from Amnesty International supported PHR’s findings at Camp Farchana and further spoke to the volatile security situation in eastern Chad, where more than 50 armed attacks on humanitarian workers have taken place during 2009. Armed banditry has been a persistent security threat, and is cited as the biggest danger facing Darfuri women and girls when they leave UNHCR camps to collect water and firewood.
PHR and other groups have long called for the implementation of firewood patrols around UNHCR camps in eastern Chad, where women and girls have to travel up to 30 kilometers away from camp to collect firewood for cooking, water to supplement the inadequate rations available in the camps and hay or straw to feed animals they raise for milk and meat. Forced to leave the camp in order to satisfy basic human needs of themselves and of their family members, Darfuri refugees plead with peacekeepers assigned to their protection, with little effect. The MINURCAT peacekeeping force and Détachement intégré de Sécurité (DIS) police units fail to provide for the security needs of the refugees; as reported in the September Amnesty International report, refugees report rebukes by DIS, telling refugees to take up their issues with camp administrators.
It is clear from events in recent weeks that the security situation in eastern Chad is insufficient for humanitarian access: aid agencies providing life-saving assistance to Darfuri refugees must be assured security for their convoys and for their international and Chadian employees. The UN should immediately review MINURCAT operationality and renew calls to donor governments to ensure full deployment of MINURCAT uniformed personnel to protect Darfuri refugees and humanitarians in Chad, along with all necessary military and other material, including military helicopters.
PHR continues to encourage all troop contributing countries and police contributing countries to recruit female officers for protection units trained to address sexual and gender-based violence and to increase funding of humanitarian operations in Chad and Sudan, to ensure the provision of healthcare services to survivors of gender-based violence.
Posted in: aid agencies, Amnesty International, chad, Conflict, darfur, detachement integre de securite, dis, firewood, Health Rights Advocate, icrc, international committee of the red cross, minurcat, nowhere to turn, refugee camps, sexual and gender based violence, sudan, unhcr, united nations, women
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