PHR Student Blog

We’re just a month away from World Health Day (April 7th) and the official launch of advocacy for the Global HEALTH Act of 2010. So far this month, through this blog you’ve learned about the Global HEALTH Act and gotten some great facts about the health workforce crisis (and how many people are waiting in line for an I-Pad — impressive!). Today’s post includes a few more resources that highlight the impact of Africa’s health workforce shortage. Check them out and share with colleagues. PHR made the following video in collaboration with our Kenyan partner group, the Health Rights Advocacy Forum. In this 6-minute video, four health workers at Mbagathi Hospital talk about  the challenges they face every day — and why they stay and practice medicine in their home country. This moving video can be shown on campus or at your workplace to stimulate discussion and urge people to take action. For more personal stories, check out Africa’s Health Care Worker Crisis: Views from the Ground, a PowerPoint presentation that outlines six main drivers of the health workforce crisis in Africa and explores these challenges through the eyes of four Ugandan medical student leaders. Feel free to use this to make a presentation on campus or in your community, or use facts from it to drive home the need for action. And watch our slideshows of Dr. Fred Katumba and Clinical Officer Jane Byarugaba following them through a typical day as they provide health care to the rural poor in Southwestern Uganda. Dr. Katumba’s work has propelled Lyantonde District to #2 out of more than 90 districts in terms of health outcomes — a phenomenal accomplishment and testament to Dr. Katumba, his staff, and the millions of hard-working health professionals who help communities realize the right to health every day.

The Save Darfur Coalition honored Darfuri women refugees at the Farchana Camp in Chad to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25 and to kick off a global campaign of activism against gender-based violence.

Women refugees in Farchana Camp in eastern Chad drew up a groundbreaking, one-page women’s empowerment document known as the Farchana Manifesto, which outlines the needs and challenges women face in the camp, along with demands for participation and accountability in shared decision-making.

The document was written in June 2008, after seven women suffered torture and public humiliation. They were bound, whipped and beaten with thorny sticks of firewood because they worked outside of the camp to earn money for their families. Shamed as prostitutes, these women had their goods, money and food ration cards taken away by force. Though there is no proof, it is likely that at least some of these women became pregnant as a result of rape.

In response, eight Darfuri women authored a one-page document in Arabic to shed light on the plight of women refugees and open a dialogue with the world. This document made its way from the Farchana camp into the hands of Physicians for Human Rights and is published on PHR’s site DarfuriWomen.org, along with a video about the Farchana Manifesto.

In November 2008, PHR sent a team of four experts — three doctors and one human rights researcher — into the camp to report on the lives and needs of the women living there.

The team discovered that out of the 88 women interviewed, 32 had experienced sexual violence. Many who shared their stories had never previously spoken about the attacks for fear of isolation, stigmatization or retaliatory violence.

“The women of the Farchana Refugee Camp have confronted and continue to suffer from violence,” said Niemat Ahmadi, a genocide survivor and liaison to the Darfuri diaspora community at the Save Darfur Coalition.

These women have greatly amplified the courageous voices of victims of sexual violence in the camps.  Despite the suffering, they remain determined to seek justice for themselves and for women around the globe.

For each of the next 16 days, the coalition’s campaign will honor a leader in the fight to empower, protect and uplift Sudanese women and promote a corresponding action. The campaign will conclude on December 10 (International Human Rights Day).

The Save Darfur Coalition is asking that activists observe the 1st day of the campaign by reading and sharing the Farchana Manifesto with their networks.

(Cross-posted on DarfuriWomen.org)

Today marks a victory for PHR and all of you who have been working to lift the US HIV travel ban. This morning, while signing the fourth reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, President Obama  vowed to “publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year.”

Obama said:

Twenty-two years ago in a decision rooted in fear rather than fact, the United States instituted a travel ban on entry into the country for people living with HIV/AIDS.  Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease — yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat.  We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic — yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country. If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it.

The final rule will remove the HIV infection from the list of “communicable disease of public health significance,” no longer require HIV testing as part of the US immigration screening process and eliminate the need for a waiver to enter the country as an HIV carrier.

Please read Obama’s statement, his first public address about HIV/AIDS where he illustrates his commitment to make the United States a global leader in tackling HIV/AIDS and erasing its stigma.  Also check out PHR’s press release on this important victory.

Said PHR CEO Frank Donaghue:

Today is a great day for human rights and for people living with AIDS, their friends and their families. The HIV Travel Ban made the United States a pariah in human rights circles, and harmed our reputation as a world leader of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. Starting in 2010, people living with HIV will no longer be prevented from entering this country, no longer turned away at customs, no longer forced to hide their condition and interrupt medical treatment, and no longer be treated by our government with contempt.

We’re celebrating in Cambridge and DC; we hope you are too. This is an amazing victory for all of you who have worked so hard to promote and protect the human rights of people living with AIDS!